MASTER 

NEGA  TIVE 
NO.  91-80259 


MICROFILMED  1991 
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AUTHOR: 


EWBANK,  TH 


TITLE: 


CURSORY  THOU 


HTS 


RAL... 


PLACE: 


WYORK 


DA  TE : 


[1 863] 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 

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113 

1  Ewl            lEwbanlc,   Thoiaas     1792-1870]  anon 

i                              GiTTsory  thou/3:hts  on  Gomo  natural  phenomena 
bearing  chiefly  on  the  priiwary  cauce  of  the  succocsion 

{    of  new  species  and  on  the  unity  of  force    • • •   £  2d  ed 
signed  May  1863) 
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CURSORY     THOUGHTS 


OF  SOMF 


f.v,? 


i4,k 


a 


NATURAL  PHENOMENA; 


BEARING  CHIEFLY  ON  THE  PRIMARY  CAUSE 


or  xriK 


SUCCESSION  OF  NEW  SPECIES, 


AND   ON 


THE    UNITY    OF    FORCE 


In  contemplation  of  created  thing^s. 
By  Bteps  we  may  ascend  to  God." 

Milton. 


SECOND     EDITION,     WITH     ADDENDA 


la 


M 


3r  c  tD  -  U  0  r  k  : 

WIM.IAM    EVEHDELL^S    SONS.     104    FULTON     STREET. 


<4? 


0 


CURSORY    THOUGHTS 


ON    SOME 


J^ATURAL  PHEIOIEIA: 


BEAEma  CHIEFLY  ON  THE  PRIMARY  CAUSE  OF 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  NEW  SPECIES, 


AND    OW 


THE  TOITY  OF  FORCE, 


In  contemplation  of  created  tilings, 
By  8tep8  we  may  ascend  to  God. 

Milton. 


NEW  YORK: 

CHARLES  SCRIBXER,  124  GRAXD*  STREET. 
CH.iRLES  B.  RICHARDSOX,  264  CANAL  STREET. 


> 


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ybtSi't 


o 

r 


CURSORY   THOUGHTS, 


iiilO> 


L— On  the  Movemfinta  of  the  Orbs  in  the  Solar  System.— A  New  Chart 
proposed. 

II.— The  influence  of  those  movements  on  the  Development  of  Mundane 
phenomena.   Origin  of  species,  &c. 

Ill  —Attraction  the  Parent  of  all  Forces— Repulsion  springs  from  it. 


I- 

As  THERE  are  no  absolute  duplicates  of  mental  any  more 
than  of  material  organisms,  men  can  no  more  think  alike  in 
every  minutia,  than  look  alike.  Every  individual  contem- 
plates  a  subject  under  impressions  somewhat  peculiar  to 
himself,  hence  shades  of  difference  abound  when  general  uni- 
formity prevails.  This  remarkable  trait  in  the  plan  of  Crea- 
tion ?s  essential  to  individuality,  to  social  existence,  and  to 
progress,  for  if  varieties  of  intellectual  did  not  equal  those  of 
physical  conformation  much  of  nature's  operations  would 
escape  detection  ;  hence  the  saying,  that  every  reflecting  per- 
son however  humble  his  parts  may  contribute  some  one  hint 
or  other  to  the  common  stock  ; — that,  however  often  reapers 
may  pass  over  the  fields  of  knowledge,  there  will  always  be 
something  for  gleaners  to  pick  up  ; — that,  as  with  matter, 
every  modification  of  mind,  the  lowest  as  well  as  the  highest, 
is  not  made  without  a  purpose. 


342999 


4  ,  CURSORY   THOUGHTS 

Students  of  nature  know,  that  every  form,  color,  quality 
and  condition  of  matter  is  replete  with  instruction,  and  that 
the  knowledge  of  it  can  never  be  exhausted.  It  is  the  same 
with  motion  and  every  variety  of  motion.  Human  ingenu- 
ity has  contrived  a  multiplicity  of  mechanical  movements, 
but,  as  with  every  discovery  in  the  arts,  they  have  their  nat- 
ural prototypes  on  the  earth  or  in  the  heavens. 

The  lines  described  in  space  by  the  orbs  that  compose  our 
system  have  not,  that  I  am  aware  of,  been  portrayed,  and 
yet,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  their  varieties,  their  convolu, 
tions  and  circumvolutions,  their  mathematical  accuracy, 
their  harmony  and  their,  beauty,  present  materials  for  a 
chart  or  a  series  of  charts,  as  interesting  and  instructive  as  any 
that  have  employed  the  hands  of  engravers,  or  put  in  requi- 
sition eccentric  or  geometrical  lathes. 

The  ordinary  tame  diagrams  of  the  planets,  arranged  in 
simple  concentric  circles,  with  the  sun  in  the  center,  might 
do  well  enough  if  they  impressed  ordinary  readers  or  popular 
audiences  with  the  actual  facts.  If  the  sun  were  stationary 
they  would  do  this,  but  as  he  is  ever  advancing  through  space, 
they  do  not  show  how  a  planet,  the  earth,  for  example,  gets 
out  of  one  circle  into  another  to  keep  up  with  him.  It  is  the 
same  with  the  satellites.  Our  moon  follows  the  earth  to 
circulate  round  her,  as  she  follows  the  sun  to  circulate 
round  him. 

I  would  therefore  have  both  orbital  and  axial  movements 
projected  ;  not  by  plane  lines  but  by  such  as  accord  with 
central  and  surface  movements.  What  these  are  like,  would 
be  seen  if  every  planet  had  marking  styles  that  left  tracings 
behind  them.  "We  should  then  behold  systems  of  curves 
running  into  figures  allied  to  the  engine  work  on  watch-cases 
and  vignettes  on  bank  bills,  and  surpassing  them — the  best 
of  them — in  symmetry  and  precision.  Though  closed  to 
material  they  are  open  to  mental  vision,  and  afford  glimpses, 
in  the  grandest  of  material  movements,  of  the  glories  of  the 
invisible  works  of  Creation. 

If  the  earth  did  not  turn  on  her  axis,  the  lines  described 
by  every  part  of  her  surface  would  be  similar  to  that  of  her 
axis,  but,  as  she  turns  round  it  every  twenty-four  hours,  her 
equator  describes  a  series  of  365  circles  in  each  revolution 


I' 


r 


«' 


<■ 


ON   SOISIE    NATURAL    PHENOMENA.  5 

round  the  sun  ;  hence  her  orbital  path  is  made  up  of  these 
instead  of  a  single  one,  and  these  are  multiplied  indefinitely 
by  points  on  the  equator — interlocking  each  other  more  or 
less  closely,  according  to  the  distance  between  the  points. 

Again,  marking  pencils  ranging  from  her  equator  to  the 
poles  would  exhibit  the  phenomenon  of  the  equatorial  circles 
resolved,  through  cycloidal  or  epicycloidal  curves,  or  what- 
ever their  proper  names  may  be,  into  straight  lines  and  even 
mto  points.  The  interlocked  circles  gradually  separating, 
then  flattening  into  cusped  figures,  next  into  deep,  and  then 
mto  shallow  undulating  lines,  which  finally  approach  straight 
ones,  and  those  ending  at  each  pole  in  a  point. 

With  the  earth's  orbit  of  circles  another  set  of  lines  is 
combined— those  described  by  the  moon.  The  period  of  her 
rotation  is  exactly  equal  to  that  of  her  sidereal  sweep  round 
the  earth,  hence  she  rolls  round  us  twelve  times  in  the  year. 
She  therefore  contributes  a  series  of  waving  lines  that  cross 
and  recross  the  circles  described  by  the  eartli.  The  lines  fol- 
lowed by  the  centers  of  the  earth  and  her  satellite  should 
also  be  given  in  the  pictorial  representation. 

Though  mentioned  as  circles,  the  orbits  of  both  planets 
and  moons  are  elliptical.  That  of  our  moon  has  of  course 
the  earth  in  one  of  its  foci,  and  the  ellipse  is  constantlv  chan- 
ging its  form  and  position  on  the  plane  of  the  earth's  orbit. 
It  is  obvious  that  no  body  can  move  round  another  in  a  cir- 
cle while  the  center  of  that  circle  keeps  going  forward. — 
Hence  elliptical  orbits  would  seem  proofs  of  progression  of 
central  bodies  ;  and  may  not  their  progression  be  deduced 
from  the  ellipticity  of  their  orbits  or  of  their  secondaries. 

As  every  planet,  planetoid,  and  moon  differs  more  or  less 
from  the  rest  in  the  character  and  intersections  of  its  curves, 
a  chart  representing  the  whole,  or  chief  of  them,  in  their  order 
and  proportion,  with  tha  cycloidal  like  lines  of  ths  rota- 
ting sun  in  their  midst,  and  the  extremes  of  elliptical  lines 
brought  in  from  various  directions  by  the  comets,  would  be 
of  general,  enduring,  and  increasing  interest.  To  ordinary 
minds  a  glance  would  give  pleasure,  while  to  the  studious  it 
would  be  suggestive  of  sublime  contemplations. 

If  the  lines  in  a  representation  of  the  whole  system  should 
be  too  much  involved  for  an  ordinary  sized  plate,  let  us  have 


CURSORY    THOUGHTS 


it  in  sections,  or  sub-systems,  as  those  of  Jupitef  and  Saturn, 
either  of  which  would  be  an  acquisition. 


IL 

Of  the  utility  of  such  a  map  let  no  one  doubt,  or  for  a 
moment  imagine  its  value  would  consist  chiefly  in  pleasing 
the  eye.  As  well  suppose  nothing  interesting  in  flowers  but 
their  colors,  or  in  birds  but  their  plumage.  To  attain  just 
conceptions  of  mundane  marvels  it  is  necessary  to  refer  to 
transmundane  movements :  Sublime  in  the  highest  degree, 
and  simple  as  sublime,  all  others  are  not  only  comprised  with- 
in, but  have  proceeded  from  and  are  governed  by  them.  As 
the  whirring  mechanisms  of  a  factory  stop  the  instant  the 
propelling  power  is  cut  off,  so  would  motion  in  all  terrestrial 
organisms  be  arrested  by  the  cessation  of  celestial  move- 
ments. 

Hence  as  there  is  no  property  of  matter  here,  so  there  is  no 
motion  in  this  part  of  the  heavens  at  least,  but  what  has  a 
direct  bearing  on  the  progress  of  our  species.  For  this  the 
power  to  discover  them  is  given.  Astronomical  diagrams 
have  made  clear  to  all  comprehensions  the  relationship  of 
this  earth  to  others  in  its  vicinity — that  we  are  occupants  of 
one  of  a  number  of  adjoining  demesnes.  And  have  they  not 
exploded  the  puerile  and  petulant  notion  that  we  are  isolated 
in  an  obscure  corner  of  creation ;  pushed  aside,  as  it  were, 
like  rough  children  out  of  good  company.  Instead  of  that 
we  perceive  our  orb  moving  in  the  galaxy  on  a  par  with  oth- 
ers, for  of  the  all-pervading  and  sustaining  influence  of  gravi- 
tation she  gives  as  well  as  receives,  and  in  proportion  equal 
to  any.  Thus  expanding  the  scripture  doctrine  into  the 
heavens,  that  God  is  no  respecter  oi  persons,  and  that  his  ten- 
der mercies  are  over  all  his  worhs. 

Another  common  impression  is,  that  human  life  runs  from 
age  to  age  in  one  unvaried  round.  It  only  seems  to  do  so  to 
unobservant  minds.  Life  in  the  abstract  is  motion,  but  actu- 
al life  is  motion  in  fresh  channels.  There  is  no  provision  for 
either  still  life  or  renewing  old  routines  of  life.  From  some 
cause  or  other  the  scene  is  always  shifting  and  its  repetition 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


avoided.  The  rate  at  which  it  shifts,  we  may  be  sure,  is 
adapted  to  our  natures  and  our  position  in  creation ;  too  slow 
to  be  obvious  to  current  observation,  because  intended  to  im- 
part, with  the  sense  of  permanence,  the  advantages  of  per- 
manence. Thus  society  to  the  Uving  may  seem  stationary, 
but  is  not.  We  know  it  is  not  now  with  us  what  it  was 
fifty  or  twenty  years  ago,  and  Ave  have  no  reason  to  infer 
that  it  will  be  in  the  next  century  what  it  has  been  in  this 
one,  or  in  any  one  before  this. 

If  we  view  life  in  a  series  of  circles,  expanding  from  those 
of  individual  existences,  through  tribes  nations  and  races,  to 
the  orbit  of  the  species,  we  cannot  iind  two  precisely  alike. 
It  is  the  same  with  the  occupations  of  life.  Each  has  a  cir- 
cuit of  its  own,  made  up  of  and  merging  into  others  of  ever 
varying  sweeps,  for  no  art  or  profession  could  have  any  value 
or  even  subsist^  if  it  were  not  linked  to  and  interlinked  with 
others.  Then  professions  are  changing,  and  science  and  art 
keep  adding  to  their  numbers.  No  phase  of  human  life  is 
therefore  enduring,  because  its  elements  cannot  be  fixed. 
Not  the  circlet  of  a  day  in  the  experience  of  man,  woman,  or 
child  is  repeated  without  change.  It  is  the  same  with  all 
creatures,  from  the  shortest  to  the  longest  of  livers.  There 
is  doubtless  variety  in  the  scenes  of  existence  of  those  that 
are  born,  grow  old  and  die  in  a  day. 

Every  natural  fact  arises  from  an  antecedent  fact,  and  this 
mutation  in  mundane  aflairs  is  a  sequence  of  the  changing 
condition  of  the  earth  herself.  From  center  to  surface  she  is, 
and  always  has  been  in  process  of  change^  as  her  recording 
tablets,  her  rocks  and  strata  proclaim.  There  must  b^-  some- 
thing great  intended  in  this,  and  something  not  local  here, 
but  common  to  every  sphere ;  at  least  it  appears  of  too  radi- 
cal a  character  to  be  peculiar  to  one  orb.  To  what  does  it 
point  ?  To  a  feature  in  creation,  than  which  nothing  makes 
Infinite  Wisdom  more  manifest,  or  more  attractive — to  the 
UNIVERSAL  LAW  OF  VARIETY — the  illimitable  evolution  of  new 
forms  and  conditions  from  limited  materials.  By  it,  sources 
of  variety  are  as  exhaustless  on  the  smaller  as  on  the  lar- 
gest worlds — another  striking  proof  of  equality  in  the  spheres 
however  greatly  they  may  difler  in  their  external  relations. 

Had  worlds  and  their  products  been   made  incapable  of 


I    I 


8 


CURSORY   THOUGHTS 


change,  life  would  (judging  from  our  feelings)  have  been 
dull  and  monotonous  in  the  largest,  and  unendurable  in  the 
least.  Here,  a  perpetual  recurrence  of  the  same  scenes  and 
events  would  eventually  cause  all  generations  to  think  the 
same  thoughts  and  act  over  the  same  acts.  One  common  ex- 
ercise of  body  and  soul  without  a  new  result  or  the  idea  of 
one— not  a  single  hope  in  the  future,  and  progress  impos- 
sible. ^ 

How  beautifully  the  law  of  variety  reverses  all  this  ;  and 
while  it  provides  for  indefinite  changes  by  giving  permanency 
to  none,  as  respects  individual  existence  it  gives  the  effect 
of  permanency  to  all.  To  what  antecedent  cause  is  thi«=; 
great  result  the  sequent  ?  To  one  which  has  been  recognised 
and  named,  but  the  nature  of  which  science  has  not  reached 
and  perhaps  never  may  reach.  If  it  be  an  ultimate  attribute 
ot  matter  there  is,  of  course,  no  getting  behind  it. 

The  range  of  physical  causation  terminates  in  the  ele- 
ments  of  matter— in  atoms.  In  them  are  the  germs  of  all 
material  developments,  as  the  rudiments  of  the  tree  are  in  its 
seed,  or  those  of  the  bird  in  the  egg.  From  them  creation 
has  rjroum  and  continues  to  grow,  for  their  reproductive  pow- 
er can  neither  be  exhausted  nor  impaired.  They  are  not  onlv 
the  seeds  but  the  materials  of  which  all  bodies  are  built,  and 
carry  with  them  that  which  gives  variety  and  vitalitv  to 
tJie  universe — whatever  it  may  be. 

But  the  difTiculty  of  conceiving  how  opposite  or  contrary 
results  can  flow  from  one  and  the  same  source  has  led  to  tlie 
doctrine  of  variety  in  atoms.  To  meet  two  great  classes  of  phe- 
nomena tvyo  kinds  have  been  held  necessary —Chemical  atoms, 
txwa  Physical  ones  whose  functions  are  thouo-ht  to  be  only 
mechanical.  In  addition  to  these,  to  meet  another  exigence, 
heat-maknig  atoms  also  have  been  suirgested. 

Now  poverty  in  the  virtue  of  one°  primordial  element,  is, 
we  think,  wholly  inadmissible.  If;  on  that  account,  two  be 
deemed  necessary,  so  may  ten  or  twenty.  If  one  be  so  poor 
m  resource  as  to  need  the  aid  of  another,  with  equal  reason  it 
may  be  held  that  the  efficiencv  of  two  would  be  increased  by 
an  additional  number.  Then  do  not  two  kinds  of  atoms  im- 
ply two  kinds  of  matter  f  The  fact  is,  if  unity  on  this  point 
be  once  invaded  there  is  no  security  against  farther  invasions. 

liic  theory  of  Dualism,  we  beHeve,  will  be  banished  from 


<•■ 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA.  9 

physics,  however  long  it  may  be  retained  in  ethics.  From 
the  limited  progress  yet  made  in  the  knowledge  of  nature's 
laws  we  are  apt  to  multiply  them  for  the  solution  of  difficult 
points.  This  is  not  surprising,  nor  is  it  to  be  regretted.  It 
is  a  natural  if  not  a  necessary  step  toward  the  discovery  that 
in  them,  as  in  their  effects,  variety  is  the  oifspring  of  unity — 
that  one  cause  springs  from  another,  and  gives  birth  to  a  fresh 
one,  like  the  limbs,  branches,  twigs,  leaves  and  leaflets,  etc., 
of  a  tree  shooting  from  one  bole.  Such,  we  imagine,  is  the 
case  with  the  properties  of  matter,  and  that  attraction  is 
the  bole,  or  the  root  of  the  bole,  whence  they  proceed.  At  all 
events,  if  they  do  not  spring  from  it,  they  center  in  it,  and  as- 
suredly cannot  subsist  without  it. 

From  it  the  law,  or  principle,  of  endless  variety  will  be 
found  to  spring. 

The  bond  of  the  universe,  attraction  holds  the  spheres  in 
their  orbits  as  it  holds  atoms  in  theirs ;  for  it  connects  them, 
separately  and  collectively,  as  by  elastic  filaments,  which, 
though  stretched  through  infinity,  cannot  be  broken,  or  lose 
their  contractile  power.  Its  influence  in  drawing^  and  ever 
tending  to  draw  bodies  together,  and  resisting  their  separa- 
tion, has  been  a  source  of  perplexity,  from  its  implying  an 
affection,  and  a  yearning  in  atoms  to  join  one  another — char- 
acteristics of  sentient  bodies,  and  with  a  power  to  act  on  one 
another  when  apart  which  sentient  bodies  do  not  possess. 

There  is  certainly  nothing  metaphorical  in  this,  but,  as  an 
ultimate  phenomenon  it  is  irrational  in  the  extreme  to  make 
our  conceptions  the  standard  of  what  is  inconceivable,  for 
how  any  property  resides  in  matter  is  utterly  incomprehensi- 
ble. 

Let  it  not  then  be  imagined  that  there  is  no  connecting 
agent  between  bodies  because  w^e  perceive  none.  There  are 
many  things  quite  as  mysterious,  which  being  familiar  to  us 
excite  neither  surprise  nor  doubt.  Had  the  elements  of  mat- 
ter instead  of  clinging  to  one  another,  been  made  unconge- 
nial, opposed,  or  indifferent  to  union,  there  had  been,  (we 
may  infer,)  either  no  distinct  forms  and  masses,  or  forms  and 
masses  of  dust.  It  is  conceded  that  in  no  substance  are  they 
in  actual  contact,  and  that  there  may  be  as  many  degrees  ot 
insensible  as  of  sensible  distances,  so  that  the  phenomenon  is 
quite  as  inexplicable  in  flying  a  kite  and  drawing  it  in  with  a 


10 


CURSORY    THOUGHTS 


string  whose  constituent  particles  do  not  touch  each  other,  as 
the  earth  drawing  the  moon  after  her. 

If  an  ultimate  cause,  it  matters  little  whether  this  ineffa- 
ble influence  be  the  immediate  or  intermediate  work  of  the 
Creator.     It  is  enough  that  it  is  from  Him. 

If  attraction  be  considered  as  only  drawing  matter  togeth- 
er, it  would  not  account  for  diversity  of  forms  and  qualities, 
but  viewed  as  carrying  with  it  all  the  attributes  of  atoms,  it 
will  go  far  toward  resolving  all  phenomena,  if  not  all  into 
one.  We  certainly  do  not  know  that  any  property  of  matter 
subsists,  or  that  any  action  of  matter  takes  place  or  can  take 
place  without  it.  All  that  is  known  points  more  directly  to 
it,  than  to  anything  else,  as  the  principle  of  action  that  com- 
])risos  all  other  principles,  or  one  whose  touch  it  is  that  awa- 
kens them. 

That  mutation  and  variety  come  from  it  there  is  sufficient 
evidence,  and  such  as  seems  to  exclude  the  possibility  of 
th(3ir  ascription  to  aught  else.  As  the  influence  of  attraction, 
here  and  everywhere,  is  admitted  to  be  ceaseless,  it  is  only 
necessary  to  show  that  it  is  ceaselessly  (though  impercepti- 
bly) varying.  To  do  this  we  need  but  appeal  to  the  fact  that 
its  grand  sources,  the  spheres,  are  every  moment  varying 
their  relative  positions — that  neither  they  nor  the  earth,  sun, 
planets  or  moon  ever  pass  over  a  foot  of  the  same  track  in  space 
— and  consequently  their  reciprocal  action  upon  one  another 
is  every  instant  varying,  and  every  fraction  of  every  instant. 

Does  not  this  show  that  the  universe  is  conducted  on  the 
principle  of  ceaseless  and  endless  change — that  a  rigid  dupli-  , 
cation  of  individual  organisms  cannot  occur — that  the  law  of 
transfiguration  has  neither  cessation  nor  limits.  Had  it  been 
otherwise,  exhaustion  of  the  Creator's  resources  might  have 
been  inferred. 

As  the  interlaced  fibres  of  the  human  brain  are  seen  to  es- 
tablish a  communication  throughout  the  cerebral  mass,  so  the 
proposed  chart  would  give  us  a' glimpse  of  the  lines  through 
which  the  nerves  of  the  universe  run  from  sphere  to  sphere, 
and  how  they  inclose  tho  whole  in  a  network  of  attraction 
whose  threads  no  forces  can  rupture,  and  through  whose 
meshes  not  an  atom  can  pass. 

If  our  system  were  cut  ofT  from  the  influence  of  others  we 
should  have  many  changes  in  thu  dLUHipuLU'lUu  njfi*  bodies. 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


11 


> 


*      M 


I- 


but  they  would  bs  limited  to  those  of  the  earth's  posi- 
tions with  respect  to  the  other  planets.  If  the  number  of 
these  were  less  we  should  have  less,  and  if  our  globe  were 
the  only  one,  life  here  would  in  time  become  a  perfectly  mo- 
notonous round.  There  could  arise  no  new  varieties  of  plants 
or  animals,  and,  iiltimately,  there  would  be  no  difference  be- 
tween individuals,  not  even  in  ourselves.  We  should  become 
fac-similes  of  one  another.  But  as  long  as  the  earth  revolves 
round  the  sun  and  is  carried  by  him  toward  other  systems, 
changes  in  her  products  must  inevitably  continue.  This  is 
the  t°ue  influence  of  the  stars — one  of  the  causes  of  which  few 
of  us  think,  and  still  fewer  dream  that  they  are  not  on  the 
earth  but  in  the  heavens,  and  yet  are  as  surely  there  as  that 
we  experience  their  effects  here. 

As  everything  on  the  spheres  contributes  to  and  is  affected 
by  their  reciprocal  influence,  there  exists  as  direct  a  rela- 
tionship between  their  products  as  between  themselves— 
between  their  occupants  also.  However  modified,  their  bodies 
are  formed  of  identically  the  same  material  as  ours,  and  are 
i^^overned  by  the  same  principles;  for  matter  is  everywhere 
essentially  the  same,  and  the  laws  to  which  it  is  subject  here 
everywhere  prevail.  This  is  no  more  than  what  might  have 
been  anticipated,  for  what  would  an  external  union  amount 
to  without  an  internal  one.  That  would  surely  be  an  imper- 
fect bond  of  the  universe  which  embraced  the  lower  forms 
and  conditions  of  matter,  and  left  out  its  highest  develop- 
ments. In  attraction  there  is,  so  to  speak,  a  blood  relation- 
ship between  the  denizens  of  the  spheres.  It  runs  through 
the  veins  of  them  all. 

Katuralists,  in  attempting  to  account  for  successive  genera 
and  species,  have  not  appealed  to  cosmical  influence,  but  they 
will,  if  we  are  right  in  supposing  the  problem  cannot  be 
solved  without  recognising  its  omnipresence  and  power.  The 
philosophy  of  a  watch  could  never  be  understood  by  the  clo- 
sest scrutiny  of  its  wheels,  separately  or  combined,  as  long  as 
the  spring  is  ignored.  Investigation  could  result  only  in  fruit- 
less conjectures,  nor  can  living  mechanisms  and  changes  in 
them  be  explained  if  this  the  mainspring  be  left  out.  Every 
assigned  cause  less  than  this,  has  itself  to  be  explained,  and 
tlmt°  cannot  be  done  without  referring  ta  another,  and  not 


12 


CURSORY    THOUGHTS 


even  then,  for  it  would  be  but  cliasiiig  tlie  secret  fiom  wheel 
to  wheel. 

We  rarely  look  beyond  the  visible  and  palpable.  That 
which  suffices  for  the  business  in  hand  is  employed  without 
considering  what  relations  it  may  have  to  other  matters.  A 
separate  cause  is  sought  out  for  a  separate  effect.  But  in  na- 
ture there  are  no  detached  causes  or  effects,  while  the  nearer 
one  approaches  the  ultimate,  the  more  comprehensive  it  is  in 
itself  and  fruitful  of  others.  Thus  wind,  or  steam,  propels  our 
ships  over  the  ocean  without  having  anything  to  do  with  the 
freight,  while  that  which  moves  the  spheres— the  fleets  on 
which  all  Creation's  treasures  are  embarked — is  the  forming 
and  conserving  principle  of  both  passengers  and  goods. 

There  is  no  force  in  the  objection  drawn  from  great  inter- 
vals of  time  between  the  appearance  of  new  and  disappearance 
of  old  species.  Nature's  developments  require  for  their  matu- 
rity, definite  but  different  degrees  of  duration.  Of  these  we 
Know  little,  except  that  they  constitute  an  expanding  series 
from  hours,  perhaps  momencs,  to  such  as  may  require  for 
units  of  measure,  centuries  if  not  decades  of  centuries.  Natu- 
ral causes  are  from  the  beginning.  There  can  be  no  changes 
lu,  no  interferences  with,  and  no  additions  to  them ;  hence 
whatever  is  mysterious  is  so  simply  because  knowledge  is  not 
sufficiently  advanced  to  explain  it.  It  certainly  is  not  for  us, 
in  the  very  infancy  of  our  schooling,  if  not  of"  our  species,  to 
limit  periods  or  processes  of  nature's  developments,  and  when 
they  differ  from  our  juvenile  imaginings,  rather  than  expand 
our  views,  call  in  special  interposition  of  the  Creator  to  sanc- 
tion them. 

To  the  slow  but  ceaseless  mutations  of  the  earth's  strata  her 
products  must  for  ever  conform  in  order  to  exist.  One  law 
of  growth  governs  al],  and,  according  to  that  law,  species 
of  animals,  as  well  as  of  plaiits,  come  in  their  seasons.  As 
well  look  for  matured  frogs  from  tadpoles  within  the  period 
assigned  for  their  ripening,  as  for  new  species  within  their  or- 
dained periods.  But  come  as  they  may,  they  come  through 
second  causes,  and  the  cause  suggested  meets  every  condition 
whether  they  are  evolved  out  of  old  species  or  not. 

Attraction  being  the  all  comprehending  principle  in  nature, 
necessarily  holds  the  same  relation  to  science— is  its  exterior 
circle  within  which  all  others  revolve.     Successfully  to  pcne- 


i:  ' 


I    ^ 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


13 


trate  them  we  must  know  something  of  it ;  and  so  it  is  that 
onlv  since  it  has  begun  to  be  studied  has  Physics  made  any 
real  or  substantial  progress.  But  how  much  has  yet  to  be 
learned !  Its  workings  in  what  is  called  instinct  in  animals 
have  to  be  detected,  and  its  operations  on  mind  explained — 
how  it  is  that  mental  organizations  are  varied  by  or  with  the 
material. 

Matter  without  motion  is  dead,  and  mind  also.  Besides 
the  influence  of  its  mutations  and  movements  around  us,  its 
restlessness  within  us  keeps  the  imagination  from  rest,  both 
while  we  sleep  and  when  awake.  The  sliglitest  movement  of 
the  head  deranges  our  dreams,  and  changing  the  position  of 
the  body  disperses  them ;  nor  can  they  be  repeated,  because 
the  condition  of  matter  within  and  without  has  in  the 
the  meantime  changed.  Moreover  their  character  is  affected, 
by  the  nature,  quantity  and  digestion  of  our  food,  while  opium 
and  kindred  drugs  evolve  preternatural  visions.  Thus  the 
restlessness  of  mind  is  explained  by  the  restlessness  of  that 
which  excites  it.  These,  of  course,  are  natural  results  of  a 
natural  law,  and  science  has  to  find  out  what  attraction  has  to 
do  with  them — and  perhaps  with  mental  and  moral  affinities 
also. 

The  idea  that  the  capricious  thoughts  of  men  are  subject  to 
law,  or  belong  to  any  system  of  order,  may  appear  a  wild  one, 
and  still  be  a  true  one.  As  in  other  things,  discord  in  this  may 
be  harmony  not  understood.  To  superficial  observation,  our 
globe  consists  of  miscellaneous  substances  in  utter  confusion, 
and  not  a  few  altogether  worthless,  yet  the  closer  they  are  ex- 
amined the  more  clearly  is  design  in  their  disposition  and  es- 
sential value  in  them  all,  made  manifest.  This  theatre  of 
mental  activity,  we  may  be  assured,  is  as  strictly  under  law 
as  its  metals  and  minerals,  its  coals,  limestones  and  granite, 
though  we  are  not  yet  able  to  observe  the  workings  of  the 
law. 

Intellectual  progress,  like  everything  else,  must  have  a 
cause — an  exterior  and  enduring  stimulant — and  what  can  it 
be,  if  not  the  one  indicated?  This  is  not  making  mind  an 
emanation  of  matter,  but  matter  the  instrument  for  exercising 
^mind.  Extend  the  principle  to  all  worlds,  for  if  the  true  one 
it  must  be  applicable  to  all,  and  have  we  not  in  attraction  a 
simple,  natural  and  sufficient  cause  for  mental  excitation  and 


14 


CURSORY    THOUGHTS 


progress  on  them  all — however  varied  in  their  masses  and 
volumes,  their  movements  and  products,  their  occupants  and 
conditions— one  accordant  with  the  perfect  sympathy  which 
subsists  between  the  material  and  immaterial,  and  which 
must  subsist  so  long  as  the  invisible  is  made  discernible  in 
the  visible. 

Material  forms  and  motions  are  embodiments  of  Divine 
thoughts,  varying  infinitely  with  the  thoughts.  They  are  the 
lessons  given  us  to  study.  We  are  to  translate  things  into 
thoughts,  for  which  purpose  they  have  to  be  followed  through 
all  the  multiplicities  of  their  external  and  internal  turnings.  It 
is  pleasing  to  contemplate  the  universe,  as,  what  we  believe  it 
literally  is,  a  school — the  spheres  its  class-rooms  and  to  every 
class  a  room.  In  this  school  students  can  never  be  waiting 
for  fresh  tasks  since  an  endless  succession  of  them  is  estab- 
lished. Material  are,  and  always  will  be,  vastly  in  advance  of 
intellectual  developments  everywhere.  There  is  nothing  ques- 
tionable in  this.  It  is  but  saying  the  Teacher  is  in  advance 
of  his  pupils. 

A  proposition  that  resolves  mental  evolution  on  the  spheres 
into  that  which  governs  their  material  forms  and  movements, 
may  be  unacceptable  to  some  minds,  but  while  creation  is  a 
panorama  ever  moving  before  an  universal  audience,  and 
without  intermission  eliciting  and  expanding  thought  through- 
out that  audience,  we  think  there  is  no  impropriety  in  sup- 
posing that  which  moves  the  spheres  and  diversifies  their 
scenery,  the  instrument  ordained  for  exciting  intellectual 
activity  upon  them.  In  our  theatres  the 'scenery  is  changed, 
sometimes  directly  by  men,  and  sometimes  indirectly  by 
weights,  but  the  scenic  machinery  of  the  universe  is  invaria- 
bly moved  by  gravitation  under  the  direction  of  its  Great 
Manasrer. 


\       J 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


15 


III. 


Section"  I. — The  ascription  of  so  large  a  share  of  Crea- 
tion's wonders  to  attraction  may  be  objected  to,  and  perhaps 
will  be  till  ALL  FORGES  are  found  resolvable  into  one.  A 
numerous  progeny,  they  appear  so  dissimilar  in  their  features 
and  habits,  that,  to  coranioii  observation,  any  relationship  be- 
tween them  could  not  be  suspected,  much  less  that  they  could 
have  a  common  origin.  The  prevailing  opinion  is  that  the 
phenomena  of  nature  require,  at  least,  a  duality  of  antago- 
nist forces,  one  to  draw  matter  together  and  another  to  sepa- 
rate it.  It  is,  indeed,  obvious  that  if  it  be  swelled  or  pushed 
out,  it  must  1)6  got  back  some  w^ay  or  other,  since  no  force  can 
be  indefinitely  extended  in  one  direction  without  exhausting 
itself,  or  ceasfno-  to  producs  motion  or  results  ;  hence,  it  is  said, 
if  two  great  forces  did  not  subsist  to  limit  the  effects  of  each 
other,  the  universe  had  been  an  impenetrable  solid  or  an 
infinitely  dilated  fluid. 

Still,  unity  of  force  seems  as  natural  and  philosophical  an 
inference  as  unity  of  light,  heat,  or  of  matter  itself.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  imagine  the  motive  power  of  Creation  a  compound;  to 
think  the  perfect  harmony  of  its  en<M6Ssly  diversified  actions 
and  reactions  is  not  due  to  something  essentially  single  and 

simple  of  itself. 

'  But  there  are  facts  connected  with  chemical,  electric,  and 
magnetic  movements  which  cannot  be  explained  by  the  the- 
ory''of  one  parent  force.'  Perhaps  not  yet.  It  is  not  to  he 
expected  that  the  deepest  truths  arc  to  be  sounded  by  in- 
flincy's  plummets,  and  no  one  imagines  science  is  matured  or 
approaching  maturity.  There  are  certainly  forces  in  opera- 
tion which  have  not  yet  been  discovered,  as  well  as  others  not 
yet  understood.  But,  passing  them  it  is  to  physical  or  com- 
mon force  we  refer. 

Force  is  manifested  by  matter  in  motion.  A  cannon  ball,  a 
fly  wheel,  or  the  sails  of  a  wind-mill  have  no  force  when  qui- 
escent. Bodies  at  rest  are  moved  by  bodies  in  force,  that  is, 
in  motion.  But  how  does  a  body  at  rest  become  itself  a  first 
mover?     Invariably,  we  believe,  by  expansion  or  contraction^ 


k-OAAA*^ 


16 


CURSORY   THOUf^HTS 


and  consequently  the  direction  of  the  force  is  oat 
inwards.^    That  is  to  sa}-,  all  forces   arise   directly 


)  lit  wards  or 
,       ,.  -  -.-   ~"J^  -^v.--   c^^.-v.   ^i.^v^tly   or  indi- 

rectly, trom  the  simple  swelling  and  shrinking  of  motive 
masses,  and  can  therefore  only  be  resolvable  into  one  which 
has  the  means  within  itself  of  producing  these  opposite  effects. 
It  must  both  contract  and  expand  matter.  Is  there  such  a 
force. 

To  accord  with  universal  analogy,  if  not  with  an  universal 
law  of  development,  we  suppose  the  eldest  or  first-born  of  the 
forces  was  the  progenitor  of  the  rest.  If  we  knew  w^hat  the  first 
condition  of  matter  w-as  we  could  tell  what  the  first  force  was 
—supposing  matter  was  aeriform  or  concrete,  and  it  may  be 
assumed  to  have  been  one  or  the  other.     If  the  former,   the 
force  was  a  contracting  one,  there  being  nothing  to  expand  • 
if  the  latter,  an  expanding  one,  there  being  nothing  to  con- 
tract,    ^ow,    the  idea  is  generally  accepted    by  the  learned 
that  the  universe  was  originally  a  subtile  fluid;    and  \vith 
this,  ATTRACTION,  the  Universal  and  omnipresent  condenser 
agrees  more  perfectly  as  the  first  mover  than  any  hvpothe- 
sis  based  on  repulsion  acting  within  a  solid  nucleus ;   for  that 
would  imply  either  that  attraction  had  been  previously  at  work 
or  that  the  constitution  of  matter  is  in  mass,  not  in  atoms. 
In  a  fluid  universe  then,   repulsion  could  not  have  preceded 
attraction.     The  latter  was  the  primogenial  force,  and  if  the 
primogenial  the  <^vrihnUu'g,one. 

(As  we  here  understand  by  repulsion  not  a  passive  resist- 
ance, which  It  is  sometimes  understood  to  be,  but  an  active 
energy,  that  sends  forth  matter  and  consequently  force  with  it 
we  use  the  terms  '  condensation'  and  '  expansion'  with  their 
equivalents,  as  convenient  synonyms  for  attraction  and  repul- 
sion.) -^ 

It  will,  we  suppose,  be  conceded  that  repulsion  has  not  the 
power  to  draw  back  what  it  displaces,  besides  growing  weak- 
er with  the  displacements.  Driving  matter  outwards,  it  would 
continue  to  do  so,  if  not  checked,  till  the  whole  was  accumu- 
lated, so  to  speak,  on  the  outermost  ^^^r^^^  of  space.  Attraction 
is  tlie  converging  power  that  prevents  this,  and  hence,  it  is  in- 
conceivable that  physical  power  could  have  been  develoi.ed 
by  repulsion  alone.  ^ 

But  if  the  forces  cannot  be  deduced  from  repulsion,  because 
ot  Its  inability  to  recover  matter  it  throws  out,  can  attraction 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


17 


push  out  that  which  it  draws  in  ?  If  it  can — that  is,  if  it  can 
be  sliown  that  repulsion  is  the  offspring  of  attraction — doubts 
respecting  tlie  unity  of  force  would  be  lessened  if  not  removed. 
Thnt  there  are  facts  which  go  to  prove  this,  we  are  constrained 
to  believe  until  better  informed.  Before  referring  to  them, 
let  us  observe  that  the  necessity  of  repulsion  as  a  primordial 
principle  of  action  is  not  apparent,  if  force  in  an  opposite  di- 
rection to  that  oi  attraction  be  the  purpose  of  its  introduc- 
tion. With  us  there  is  no  force  but  what  is  sent  in  any  and 
every  direction,  and  made  to  react  on  itself;  why "^  then 
should  nature  require  that  which  we  do  not.  Are  not  our 
working  mechanisms,  in  every  case,  based  on  the  making 
one  force  perform  the  functions  of  two,  a  pushing  and  a  pull- 
ing one,  and  do  they  not  produce  almost  endless  varieties  of 
results  ?  What  more  does  attraction  with  repulsion  accom- 
plish ?  By  depressing  a  piston  or  the  end  of  a  lever,  or  pull- 
ing down  a  rope,  we  cause  w^ater  or  solid  bodies  to  rise, 
and  is  it  thougiit  that  nature  cannot  make  the  descending 
force  of  gravitation  produce  an  ascending  one,  and  vice  versa  f 

In  some  minds  the  idea  would  arise,  that  if  two  equal  and 
opposite  forces  proceeding  from  separate  sources  w^ere  em- 
ployed, one  might  sometimes  have  to  wait  for  the  other — the 
iuleruni  for  the  lever,  or  the  lever  for  the  fulcrum.  But  if 
repulsion  emanates  from  attraction,  it  cannot  be  absent 
when  wanted,  nor  called  out  till  wanted,  nor  appear  except 
in  just  measure  to  the  call;  that  is,  if  the  same  relations  ex- 
ist between  them  as  between  action  and  reaction  in  our  ordi- 
nary machines.  And  such  we  think  is  the  fact — that  one  is 
primary  and  jiositive,  the  other  secondary  and  negative. 

But  admitting  that  attraction  which  never  sleeps  awakens 
repulsion,  and  that  reaction  is  torpid  till  quickened  by  ac- 
tion, what  are  nature's  fulcra?  In  the  sense  we  have  of 
such  things,  she  uses  nonel  While  we  are  obliged  to  employ 
intervening  media  for  the  transmission  of  force,  she  transmits 
it  without  them  ;  but,  if  an  agent  is  to  be  recognised  between 
her  forces  and  the  resistances  they  overcome,  we  should  say, 
on  concrete  spheres  it  is  heat.  It  would,  however,  be  more 
correct  to  say  that  heat,  instead  of  being  something  inter- 
posed between  attraction  and  repulsion,  is  repulsion  itself 

The  ordinary  processes  by  which  attraction  eUcits  repul- 


/^-mruyui     fyyULtyfuXmjL^'yh\^     -^yjtviv^cL 


18 


CURSORY   THOUGHTS 


sion  are  chemical  and  mechanical  decompositions.  Of  the  first 
It  IS  unnecessary  to  speak,  as  examples  are  ever  before  us  It 
IS  the  second,  the  least  obvious,  to  which  we  appeal 
^  Let  it  be  premised  that  heat— all  heat  as  we  suppose— is, 
Jike  sound  or  any  other  property  of  matter,  an  efiect,  not  a 
substance;  and  that  it  is  evolved,  and  was  originally  evol- 
^II  }y  /'''^'''''^  or  molecules  rubbing  over  molecules;  and 
that  friction  attends  ever?/  kind  and  degree  of  pressure,  and  con- 
sequently  every  movement  of  bodies  and  within  bodies  Heat 
given  out  by  mixing  sulphuric  acid  and  water,  or  water 
with  quicklime,  are  chemical  examples.  If  the  question  were 
asked.  When  was  heat  first  evolved  ?  we  should  say,  when 
matter  was  first  compressed. 

It  is  assumed  that  at  the  beginning  matter  was  an  iBriforni 
tluid  or  a  solid,  and  occupied  the  whole  of  space  or  a  part  of 
It.  n  solid,  it  was  a  mere  center  of  a  boundless  area,  and 
we  should  have  to  admit  that  heat  Mas  required  to  dilate 
and  difluse  it,  and  therefore  preceded  friction.  But  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  was  a  universal  fluid,  prelusive  to  being  gath- 
ered into  concrete  spheres,  the  presence  of  heat  would  have 
been  directly  antagonistic  to  its  condensation ;  and  they  who 
maintam  the  fiery  hypothesis  should  account  for  its  appear- 
ance as  well  as  for  its  dispersion. 

Although  the  idea  has  been  derided,  we  think  the  fluid 
universe  was  essentially  cold— cold  as  the  attenuated  ether 
in  space  is  now,  and  that  heat  commenced  with  its  conden- 
sation—that sensible  heat  is  pre-eminently  a  product  of  con- 
crete spheres ;  that  is,  of  attraction  which  made  them  con- 
crete. But  if  heat  IS  confined  to  the  spheres  repulsion  is  al- 
so. Indeed,  the  inference  is  hardly  to  be  avoided,  that  if 
repulsion  be  inseparable  from  expansion,  it  can  only  be  in 
torce  where  tbere  is  matter  to  expand. 

As  we  have  supposed,  contrary  to  authorities,  that  the  uni- 
versal nebula  was  destitute  of  heat,  it  may  be  asked.  How  did 
attraction  elicit  repulsion  in  it?  As  in  its  separated  portions, 
and  as  in  their  subdivisions— in  that  one,  for  example,  of  which 
our  solar  system  is  made  up,  gravitation  urging  the  fluid  to  a 
common  center,  rotation,  by  a  well  known  law  followed ;  and 
the  centripetal  force  thus  generated  gave  birth  to  a  centrifu- 
gal  one  that  successively  threw  off'  the  matter  of  the  planets 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


19 


and  broke  up  the  whole.  That  is,  we  suppose  the  parent 
nebula,  under  the  influence  of  gravitation,  began  and  w^ent 
through  the  same  process  as  its  offshoots — that  from  its  rota- 
tion all  other  movements  have  proceeded.  It  seems  hardly 
philosophical  to  require  a  law  for  the  whole  different  from  that 
which  governs  the  parts;  nor  do  we  see  how  that  which  is  re- 
cognised in  the  one  can  be  ignored  in  the  other.  From  what 
movement  but  that  of  the  whole  could  those  of  the  parts 
proceed.  They  must  have  been  in  unison  \vith  it  and  analo- 
gous to  it.  If  the  theory  of  Laplace  be  true,  it  can  no  more 
be  limited  to  separate  systems  than  gravitation  itself. 

A  centripetal  and  a  centrifugal  movement  may  be  consid- 
ered the  original  forms  of  attractive  and  repulsive  forces,  and 
consequently  of  condensation  and  expansion.  Nor  does  this 
conflict  "with  the  position  assumed  respecting  beat,  as  it  was 
necessarily  evolved  by  condensation. 

We  everywhere  perceive  properties  of  matter  merging  into 
their  opposites,  as  light  and  dark,  heat  and  cold,  hard  and 
soft,  etc.  Perhops  it  will  be  said,  these  are,  in  each  case, 
mere  degrees  of  one  and  the  same  thing.  We  admit  they  are, 
and  we  are  not  sure  that  repulsion  will  not  finally  be  resolved 
into  diminished  attraction.  But  let  us  look  for  an  illustration 
of  a  force  generating  an  antagonist  one: — Metals  are  con- 
densed to  a  limited  extent  by  tlje  hammer,  or  when  pressed 
between  rollers.  During  the  process  they  become  heated,  in 
consequence  of  the  violent  displacement  or  friction  of  their 
molecules.  Most  persons  have  seen  the  cold  end  of  a  nail  rod 
made  red  hot  by  the  hammer.  Oriental  smiths  of  old  occa- 
sionally worked  iron  without  fire.  In  the  present  times  we 
are  told  that,  *in  some  parts  of  Hindostan,  and  on  tlie  coast 
of  Malabar,  they  communicate  to  it  by  beating  the  degree  of 
heat  requisite  for  rendering  it  malleable.' 

Suppose  we  take  a  mass  of  iron  and  hammer  it  till  it  be- 
comes of  a  red  or  white  heat,  we  find  it  swells  and  keeps 
swelling  with  the  heat.  Condensation  is  folloiccd  by  and 
actually  produces  expansion]  an  internal  force  is  excited  which 
OVERCOMES  the  exierncd  one  which  excites  it — the  very  thing 
required  in  a  parent  force.  •  Could  a  globular  mass  be  thus 
treated  and  kept  in  a  globular  form,  the  effect  would  be  more 
obvious.  At  first  it  would  be  reduced  in  volume,  but  as  the 
heat  rose  it  would  expand  with  it  into  a  hundred  or  a  thou- 


20 


CURSORY  THOUGHTS 


sand  times  its  original  bulk— into  gas  if  the  compressing  pow- 
er were  continued.  This  is  an  experiment  which  we  cannot 
carry  out,  but  Nature  is  continually  performing  it  in  the  cen- 
ter of  the  earth,  and  with  more  refractory  materials  than  the 
metals. 

As  with  every  other  principle  of  action,  means  are  provided 
for  us  to  diversify  its  application,  to  hasten  the  process  and 
diminish  the  pressure— friction  matches  and  detonating  com- 
pounds are  examples.  We  have  the  principle  at  our'^iinger 
ends.  Rubbing  the  hands  together  rapidly  evolves  heat,  aiid 
our  bodies,  like  the  friction  of  two  pieces  of  wood,  might' thus 
be  made  to  consume  themselves. 

Now  if,  in  the  iron,  condensation,  the  legitimate  represen- 
tative of  attraction,  directly  evolved  repulsion,  the  latter  was 
not  an  original  but  a  derivative  force.  It  as  certainly  could 
not  have  appeared  without  the  former,  as  that  it  ceased  to  ap- 
pear when  that  ceased  to  act.  And  it  did  precisely  what  it 
does  in  nature— it  changed  the  direction  oj  the  force.  Can  re- 
pulsion thus  produce  attraction?  If  co-eval  and  co-equal 
ought  it  not  to  produce  it  ?  We  are  very  sure  that  expansion 
however  extended,  can  never  directly  excite  condensation.  A 
watch  13  moved  by  the  expansion  of  the  spring,  but  further 
expansion  will  never  wind  it  up. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  said,  attraction  is  excited  when  steam 
from  heated  water  returns  to  the  liquid  condition.  True,  in 
that  case  it  is  indirectly  excited,  but  from  first  to  last  repulsion 
depended  on  it  and  only  existed  by  it,  for  attraction  formed 
the  hquid  and  the  fuel  to  dilate  it.  Rain  is  a  parallel  case. 
Other  illustrations  might  be  cited,  but  we  know  of  none  in 
which  attraction  does  not  precede  repulsion  and  give  rise  to  it 
— directly  in  the  constitution  of  bodies,  indirectly  in  the 
movement  of  bodies.  Masses  cannot  be  swelled  without  heat 
and  as  heat  is,  so  is  repulsion,  the  product  of  attraction. 

In  brief:  attraction  compresses  matter,  compressure  evolves 
heat,  lieat  expands  the  matter  compressed  and  fits  it  again 
for  attraction  to  act  on  it.  Such  appears  to  be  the  pro'cess 
of  the  composition  and  recomposition  of  all  bodies,  and  of  all 
forces  within  them  and  without. 

In  the  constitution  of  the  earth,  the  evolution  of  heat  by 
compressure  differs  in  different  substances:  an  amount  of 
friction  that  kindles  some  into  flame  is  scarcely  to  be  felt  iu 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


21 


others.  The  highest  natural  temperatures  are  those  of  living 
bodies,  and  for  the  obvious  reason  that  their  consumption  of 
heat  is  the  greatest.  It  is  that  which  prevents  us  from  being 
collapsed  into  statuettes;  and  if  there  were  not  more  than  just 
sufficient  to  prevent  that,  we  should  be  as  incapable  of  mov- 
ing from  one  place  to  another  as  stones  or  trees.  We  are  con- 
stantly expending  heat  in  exterior  force  and  consequently 
crave  at  short  intervals  fresh  supplies  of  materials  from  which 
to  obtain  it. 

Though  the  proposition  that  both  forces  are  manifestations 
of  one  principle  may  be  rejected,  it  must  be  conceded  that 
their  effects  are  degrees  of  one  and  the  same  thing  ;  expansion 
being  diminished  density,  as  cold  is  diminished  heat  and 
darkness  diminished  light.  Then  how  will  objectors  dispose 
of  the  fact  of  expansion  being  evolved,  by  an  accumulation, 
instead  of  a  diminution  of  condensing  power  ?  We  submit 
that  it  points  to  the  law  of  the  succession  and  reproduc- 
tion of  bodies,  and  shows  how  it  is  carried  out  by  a  force 
that  comprises  all  conditions  within  itself — a  law  which 
enacts  that  attraction  (condensation)  wdien  carried  to  certain 
extents,  shall  break  down  bodies  it  builds  up  and  thereby 
provide  for  recomposition  of  their  elements — a  law  by  which 
it  repels  as  well  as  attracts,  bursts  asunder  what  it  binds  to- 
gether, and  renews  what  it  destroys — a  law  by  which 

'Extremes  in  nature  equal  endH  produce.' 

Whether  repulsion  be  considered  or  not,  the  ofT^ipring  of 
attraction,  it  is  of  no  secondary  importance  in  the  economy 
of  creation.  It  is  the  chief  aciiny  principle  in  the  concrete  as 
attraction  was  in  the  fluid  universe.  Based  on  her  conden- 
sed materials  and  their  capacity  for  expansion,  the  earth's 
forces,  except  what  we  get  from  tides  and  falling  water,  are 
all, — organic  and  inorganic — expansive.  We  can  have  no 
force,  or  next  to  none,  from  and  during  the  condensation  of 
substances,  because  they  are  already  condensed,  while  in 
their  expansion  there  are  no  limits  to  it.  In  one  case  motion 
can  be  had  only  through  minute  distances,  in  the  other 
through  the  greatest  practical  distances.  With  one  we 
should  be  all  but  helpless,  with  the  other  our  power  is  nearly 
omnipotent. 


22 


CURSORY  THOUGHTS 


In  tlie  arts  we  are  incessantly  applying  heat  to  loosen  the 
bonds  of  attraction;  in  slightly  or  temporarily  changing  the 
condition  of  bodies,  as  in  drying,  softening  and  fusing  theS  or 
in  their  decomposition  for  mechanical  forces,  as  when  we  con- 
vert water  into  vapor  and  other  substances  into  gas.  The  key 
to  unlock  them  all  is  heat,  and  in  applying  the  key  we  like 
nature,  apply  that  which  attraction  provides,  to  open  stores 
which  attraction  has  laid  up. 

On  concrete  worlds  forces  must  depend  upon  heat,  and  from 
their  constitution  they,  and  they  onlv,  are  heat  producers 
It  may  perhaps  be  imagined  that  force  might  be  obtained  on 
gaseous  or  nebulous  orbs  from  the  continuous  compiessino- 
power  of  gravitation,  but  motion,  from  the  shrinkage,  would 
be  too  s  ow  to  be  of  use  and  always  growing  slower.  We 
can  hardly  conceive  a  mill-wheel  c6uld  be  turned  once  round 
in  a  twelve  month. 

However  it  may  be  elsewhere,  here  the  general  diffusion  of 
a  common  agent  of  expansion  was  required,  and  we  have  it  in 
one  to  which  we  owe  more  than  has  yet  been  explained,  viz  • 
water.  It  appears  to  enter  into  the  composition  of  all  bodies" 
Plants  and  animals  are  chiefly  made  up  of  it.  A  living  bein'^c; 
of  a  perfectly  and  substance  is  an  impossible  conception  •  All 
are  moist  and  all  food  is  wet.  With  respect  to  force  the 
earth  consists  of  three  great  departments--water,  the  expan- 
sile  agent-fuel  to  expand  it-and  bodies,  organic  and  inor- 
ganic, to  be  acted  on.  '      ° 

There  is  then    we  apprehend,   this  difference  between  at- 
traction and  repulsion:  the  former  produces,  the  latter  expends 
—giving  out  quickly  what  the  other  slowly  stores  up.     It 
constitutes  the  running  conduits   through  which  forces  are 
drawn  from  a.  placid  reservoir.     There  are  other  points  of 
marked  sigmlicance:    attraction  is  constant  and  uniform  re- 
pulsion is  neither.    It  is  moreover  limited  to  the  spheres  and 
consequently   does   not    send    like    attraction   its    influence 
through  the  intervening  ether.    lu  natural  bodies  attraction 
and  repulsion  are  delicately  balanced ;  to  cohesion  we  can  add 
nothing  or  next  to  nothing  in  any,  but  for  repulsion  we  can 
mcrease  and  diminish  it  in  all.     Again  :~in  all  forces  from 
men,   animals,  wind,  steam,   electricity,  etc.,   there   is  a  con- 
sumption or  waste  of  motive  material,  which  has  to  be  re- 
placed or  motion  stops.     Whence  comes  the  replenishment  ? 


«       ' 


r 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


23 


Solely  from  attraction,  which  expending  no  material  requires 
itself  no  recuperation. 

Another  point  may  be  recalled : — The  mass  of  iron  was 
supposed  to  be  resolved  into  its  elements  by  com  pressure, 
but  it  might  also  be  volatilized  without  pressure,  i.e.,  in  a 
furnace  sutiiciently  heated  :  in  which  case  the  same  result  is 
brought  out  by  diminishing  pressure  as  by  increasing  it.  The 
application  of  this  fact  to  sustain  the  parentage  of  attraction 
is  this  :  In  both  cases  heat  was  the  dissolving  agent.  Re- 
pulsion (expansion)  called  in  fuel  from  without,  but  attrac- 
tion (compressure)  made  the  mass  serve  as  its  own  fuel. 
Had  it  required  aught  extraneous,  like  repulsion,  it  could  not 
be  the  all  generating  Force — the  G-reat  Heat-Froducer. 

Heat  has  been  appropriately  named  •  a  radiating  force ;' 
and  when  it  is  said  expansion  abstracts  heat,  it  is  say  in  *^, 
what  we  afl[irm,  that  expansion  expends  force.  Then,  as 
condensation  produces  heat  (and  there  is  no  force  without 
it)  that  which  produces  condensation  is  the  fountain  of  the 
forces. 


Section  2.  Illustrations  drawn  from  iron  of  repulsion  be- 
ing a  product  of  attraction  may  serve  as  a  type  of  those  to 
be  derived  from  the  arts.  Let  us  now  take  one  from  nature, 
on  the  largest  scale,  and  see  if  both  do  not  accord,  and  under 
circumstances  and  conditions  as  widely  diflerent  as  can  well 
be  imagined. 

It  is  admitted  that  gravitation  would  sijueeze  our  earth 
and  her  atmosphere  into  a  small  adamantine  mass,  if  it  were 
not  checked  in  some  way  or  other.  Now  as  it  has  continued 
to  act  from  the  beginning  with  unabated  power,  why  has 
condensation  abruptly  stopped  and  left  her  and  her  associ- 
ate planets  in  different  and  very  moderate  densities?  And 
how  are  those  densities  preserved  ?  The  answer  to  the  first 
question  will  be  found,  we  think,  conclusive,  that  repulsion 
is  generated  by  attraction,  and  the  reply  to  the  second  will 
confirm  this  by  showing  how  an  alternate  preponderance  is 
maintained  of  one  force  over  the. other. 

The  closer  the  constitution  of  concrete  spheres  is  examined 
the  more  evident,  we  think,  it  will  appear  that  every  one  is 


24 


CURSORY   THOUGHTS 


a  friction  Fire-mill— that  it  generates  in  heat  a  central  repul- 
sive force  in  proportion  to  its  mass,  and  consequently  one 
that  at  length  balances  the  compressive  force  )vithout.  The 
very  existence  of  a  planet  is  a  proof  of  the  presence  of  this 
force,  and  it  fully  accounts  for  diversities  of  densities,  and 
for  diversities  of  materials  not  combining  in  one  compact 
body. 

The  temperature  of  the  earth  is  known  to  increase  with  the 
distance  from  the  surface,  being  as  we  assume,  the  etfect  of 
gravity  crowding  her  materials  into  smaller  and  smaller 
areas  and  consequently  heating  them  more  and  more  as  they 
approach  the  center,  whare  the  extremest  of  mundane  heat  is 
engendered  (by  friction)  under  the  concurrent  pressure  of  her 
entire  mass.  And  there,  as  with  the  heated  iron,  it  is  expan- 
sion against  condensation— repulsion  versus  srravity.  When 
repulsion  preponderates  it  displaces  matter^and,  \is  it  sub- 
sides, the  other  pushes  down  fresh  matter. 

Of  those  who  believe  this  central  heat  part  of  a  primordial 
iiary  nebula,  some  doubt  its  permanence.  The  matter  ren- 
dered by  it  incandescent,  liquid  and  gaseous,  must,  they 
think,  grow  colder  by  radiation,  and  hence  they  infer  that 
the  mean  temperature  of  the  earth  is  decreasing.  Others 
suppose  it  retains  its  original  intensity,  and  will  retain  it  to 
the  end  of  time. 

The  error  of  both  parties,  as  we  take  it,  arises  from  con- 
templating the  material  of  the  earth  as  at  rest,  forgetting 
that  a  central  expanding  force  is  constantly  disturbing  it^ 
that  a  ceaseless  exchange  of  heated  matter  for  cold  is  going 
on,  and  that  from  this  cause,  if  from  no  other,  the  ivhole  is, 
though  imperceptible  to  us,  ahvays  in  motion,  some  portions 
towards  and  some  from  the  center,  and  consequently  that 
fresh  heat  is  as  copiously  generated  now  as  it  ever  was,  or 
perhaps  ever  can  be. 

There  is  no  room  to  question  the  reality  of  this  circulation. 
Of  the  ascending  movement  every  part  of  the  earth's  surface 
furnishes  evidence,  in  marine  formations  in  the  midst  of  con- 
tinents and  on  the  summits  of  mountains.  AYhere  is  there 
not  sand  and  gravel,  and  limestone  composed  of  shells  and 
corals?  To  say  nothing  of  visible  discharges  of  internal 
matter  by  volcanoes,  we  have  metals,  granite,  and  other  sub- 


ON   SOME    NATURAL    PilENOMKxXA. 


25 


stances,  raised  within  our  reach.     Wide  districts  of  land  are 
known  to  be  now  rising^. 

Nor  is  the  descending  movement  less  apparent,  either  upon 
or  beneath  the  surface,  as  the  abrasion  of  mountains  by  rain 
and  the  transference  of  detritus  to  lower  levels,  and  throuo-h 
rivers  to  the  oc3ans.  Ancient  cities  are  more  or  less  deeply 
buried,  and  some  have  wholly  disappeared.  Large  areas  of 
lands  are  settling.  But  what  is  more  to  the  point,  o-eolo'^-ical 
strata  have  gone  down  with  their  fossil  treasures  in  the  order 
of  their  appearance  on  the  surface,  the  oldest  the  lowest  and 
the  latest  immediately  beneath  us.  In  all  times  and  coun- 
tries they  have  thus  followed  each  other,  and  at  this  day,  as 
in  preceding  times,  internal  matter  is  coming  up,  and  external 
matter  going  down— perfectly  analogous  to  action  and  reac- 
tion in  organic  structures — secretion  .jf  fresh  motive  material 
and  discharge  of  the  waste. 

The  dense  forests  of  the  carboniferous  and  succeeding  peri- 
ods, where  are  they  ?  Did  they  wither  and  perish  on  the  sur- 
face? Not  one  of  them.  They  sunk  beneath  it  in  the  order 
they  appeared  upon  it,  and  from  vegetable  have  become  min- 
eral fuel,  a  substance  of  vital  importance  to  human  pro^rress 
for  all  time.  That  the  rate  of  subsidence  of  surface  strata  is 
subject  to  some  law  and  one  that  checks  the  descent  of  di- 
vers matters  at  divers  depths  there  need  be  no  question. 
Coal  probably  settles  no  lower  than  suffices  to  receive  the 
heat  and  pressure  requisite  to  its  perfect  conversion,  when  it 
commences  its  slow  ascent.  It  is  not  wanted  to  supoort  the 
central  fire,  since  the  pressure  there  fuses  materials  more  en- 
during. There  can  be  no  such  lack  of  system  as  to  permit  it 
to  go  where  it  could  furnish  but  a  few  partial  and  momen- 
tary flashes. 

Incoherence  or  looseness  of  the  materials  is  essential  to 
these  internal  movements.  It  secures,  what  is  also  indispen- 
sable, inequaUtij  of  resistance  to  the  upheaving  force  ^  and 
keeps  changing  the  location  and  direction  of  the  weakest  or 
yielding  parts.  Were  the  matter  of  the  earth  uniformly  con- 
solidated, instead  of  interchanges  silent,  slow,  and  continuous 
there  could  be  nothing  but  sudden  explosions,  with  general 
displacements.  But  as  things  are  arranged,  the  heteroo-eneous 
and  detached  character  of  the  materials  can  only  resist^a  com- 
uaratively  moderate  expanding  force,  while  the  part  least  able 


26 


CURSORY   THOUGHTS 


at  the  moment  to  withstand  it,  gives  way  without  disturbing 
the  rest.  It  is  only  when  these  insensible  movements  are 
checked  that  sensible  earthquakes  occur;  and  that  even  they 
perform  important  functions,  besides  that  of  preventing  con- 
solidation, we  may  well  believe. 

Besides  being  indispensable  for  a  continuous  conversion  of 
substances  into  other  substances,  it  is  this  circulation  of  the 
materials  of  orbs  that  arrests  condensation  and  secures  perma- 
nency to  planetary  and  solar  volumes — a  fundamental  and 
universal  principle  we  believe.  But  for  it,  half  the  matter  of 
our  earth  would  be  comparatively  of  no  use.  The  greater 
part  would  serve  no  other  purpose  than  a  foundation  for  a 
thin  stratum  on  the  surface ;  or  it  would  be  like  surplus  raw 
stock  lying  useless  in  a  manufacturer's  cellar ;  an  idea  repug- 
nant to  every  principle  of  economy  that  characterises  the 
Creator's  designs. 

The  hypothesis  of  our  planet  being  a  shell,  or  crust,  con- 
taining a  sea  of  molten  matter,  is  among  the  wildest  of  the 
wild.  Its  supporters  seem  to  have  no  idea  that  law  reigns 
within  it  as  well  as  without,  and  with  equally  beneficent  pur- 
poses and  results;  that  every  movement,  the  smallest  as  the 
greatest,  is  as  necessary  to  accomplish  them,  as  those  within 
their  own  bodies  are  to  keep  them  in  health.  Human  pro- 
gress, material  and  mental,  is,  we  suppose,  the  chief  purpose 
of  the  earth's  creation  and  of  our  being  put  in  possession  of  it. 
To  this  end,  substances  elaborated  for  the  arts  at  vast  depths 
are  prepared  and  brought  up  by  the  system  of  circulation, 
and,  when  worn  out  or  consumed  are  passed  down  to  undergo 
fresh  elaboration  and  be  ready  again  when  wanted — a  sj^stem 
utterly  incompatible  with  any  shell  theory,  but  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  the  renewal  of  bodies  on  the  surface,  if  not  the 
foundation  on  which  that  renewal  is  based. 

Were  the  theory  of  friction,  as  the  primordial  source  of 
heat,  considered  in  connection  with  this  circulation  of  the 
earth's  materials — much  on  the  same  principle  as  water  cir- 
culates through  a  heated  boiler,  infinitely  slower  but  not  less 
certain — the  origin  and  maintenance  of  heat  in  the  spheres 
could  hardly  remain  in  doubt.  A  theory  sufficient  for  the 
earth  is  sufficient  for  the  universe — for  solar  as  for  planetary 
heat. 

Though  the  specific  gravities  of  ths  larger  planets  are  less 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


27 


•   ( 


than  those  of  smaller,  their  masses  are  sufficient  to  generate 
the  upheavmg  forces  required,  even  were  resistance  to  fusion 
greater  than  in  our  earth's  alembic;  but  the  probabilities  are 
that  It  IS  less.  Light  and  porous  bodies  are  easier  ignited  by 
triction  than  heavy  and  solid  ones.  Fire  is  quickly  kindled 
by  rubbing  wood  on  wood,  but  no  one  would  attempt  it  with 
two  pieces  of  rnetal.  Internal  heat  may  therefore  be  more 
readily  generated  in  the  elder  planets  than  in  the  earth  and 
her  immediate  neighbors  ;  and  from  the  same  cause  (their 
diminished  densities)  less  amounts  or  intensities  would  be  re- 
quired—resistance to  the  upheaving  force  would  be  less  It 
may  well  be  that  densities  varying  with  the  masses  of  planets 
have  reference  to  the  generation  of  central  forces— if  these 
are  so  vitally  important  as  we  claim  them  to  be. 

If  there  are  planets  or  satellites  whose  surflices  have  never 
been  broken  by  internal  forces  we  should  consider  the  flact  as 
strong  an  indication  of  the  absence  of  intelligent  occupants  as 
anything  yet  suggested ;  so  essential  to  the  inauguration  and 
maintenance  of  vegetable  and  animal  organisms  does  an  inter- 
change of  internal  and  external  matter  appear.     We  believe 
an  early  and  prolonged  series  of  upheavals  necessary  to  break 
up  the  originally  homogeneous  material  and  compact  charac- 
ter of   every  planet,  m  order  to  initiate  variety  of  substances 
and  promote  their  development,  by  changing  the  positions, 
and  consequently  diversilying  the  conditions  and  reci])rocai 
influences  of  the  separated  masses.     And  such  movements  we 
conceive  were  not  less  necessary  to  prepare  a  planet  to  be- 
come a  theatre  ot  life,  than  they  are  to  keep  it  one.     A  f  rst 
earthquake  might  be  like  an  explosion  of  powder  in  the  cen- 
ter ot  a  sohd  rock,  but  subsequent  tremors  would  diminish  in 
violence  with  disintegration,  till,  as  we  suppose  will  be  the 
case  here,  their  pulsations  with  rare  exceptions  become  unfelt. 
I  he  rugged  and  barren  aspect  of  our  moon  would  be  ac- 
counted for  if  the  ante-vegetable  period  of  eruption  has  not 
ended  on  her.     She   may,    however,    not  have   reached  the 
point  of  compression  which  establishes  a  permanent  and  del- 
icate balance  between  her  interior  dilating  and  exterior  com- 
pressing force.     Her  density  is  little  over  six  tenths  that  of 
the  earth.     She  may  still  be  contracting. 

Those  who  teach  that  matter  was  intensely  hot  previous  to 
the   formation   of    the    spheres— sensible   that    condensation 


28 


CURSORY  THOUGHTS 


could  not  begin  till  tlie  raging  heat  was  got  rid  of— admit 
that  "607?ie  great  change  must  have  taken  place  in  it,  since 
while  it  continued  to  act  with  its  full  repulsive  energy  the 
process  of  agglomeration  by  attraction  could  not  have  gone 
on."  We  hold  it  safer  to  infer  that  the  principles  evolved  at 
the  birth  of  creation  were  the  same  as  are  now  in  operation, 
that  not  one  was  evoked  for  a  temporary  or  special  purpose 
and  dismissed  when  that  was  accomplished,  and  hence  that 
the  fluid  universe  could  only  have  been  heated  as  matter  is 
now  heated.  Heat  therefore  could  not  have  preceded  conden- 
sation, unless  it  were  in  atoms,  but  as  their  attributes  are  as 
indestructible  as  themselves,  had  they  been  originally  of  a 
glowing  heat  they  would  be  found  so  in  every  substance  now. 

One  of  the  alleged  functions  of  nebulous  heat  was  to  cause 
diversities  of  densities  in  stellar  and  planetary  bodies.  For 
example ;  when  the  matter  of  our  system  was  at  its  highest 
temperature  the  outermost  planet  was  thrown  oflP,  the  next 
one  when  it  was  somewhat  reduced,  (though  how  we  are  not 
told)  the  next  when  it  was  farther  moderated,  and  so  on  to 
the  earth  whose  matter  was  incandescent,  then  to  Venus  and 
Mercury.  This,  it  is  said,  perfectly  tallies  with  the  exceeding 
ditfuscness  of  the  matter  of  the  elder  planets ;  Saturn  not  be- 
ing denser  than  cork,  etc.  Now,  all  this,  we  think,  may  be 
accounted  for  on  common  grounds  and  acknowledged  princi- 
ples without  calling  for  an  universal  fire  attended  with  no 
small  difficulties  of  disposing  of  it.  That  is,  by  making  at- 
traction, not  repulsion  IYlq  first  acting  principle.  As  a  gaseous 
body,  the  density  of  the  nebula  of  oar  system,  if  cold  as  the 
climate  of  Siberia,  would,  by  gravitation,  have  varied  from 
the  center  to  the  circumference,  and  there  would  have  been 
the  same  differences  between  that  of  Saturn  and  the  other 
planets  as  there  are  now.  For  such  a  parpose  an  intensely 
heated  fluid  was  certainly  not  reqaired.  It  might  retard  but 
could  not  vary  the  result. 

Then,  by  what  processes  was  one  portion  of  the  fiery  mist 
got  into  and  locked  up  in  the  deepest  of  planetary  prisons, 
and  another  gathered  roand  the  sun  as  a  luminous  envelope  ? 
— as  some  teach.  We  believe  no  satisfactory  solutions  of 
these  enigmas  have  been  given,  while  fresh  embarrassments 
arise  at  every  step.  In  both  cases  the  difficulty  of  accounting 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  heat  is  felt.     Some  philosophers 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


29 


V 


thmk  there  is  no  dmimution  of  it  in  either,  others  admit  a 
slow  but  constant  outlay  in  both.  The  sun,  ihev  say,  is 
wastmg  away  by  the  emission  of  liglit  and  heat,  the  hypo- 
thesis IS  laden  v^^nh  difliculties.  We  j)refer  the  one  proposed 
in  this  paper  By  it  a  heat  generating  orb  can  no  more 
waste  away  than  a  non-generating  one.  The  heat  given  out 
IS  perpetually  renewed,  and  with  no  more  waste  of  matter 
tlian  motion  or  sound  wastes  it. 

';  The  existence  of  this  central  heat~a  residuum  of  that 
which  kept  all  mntter  in  a  vaporiform  chaos  at  first-is 
among  the  most  solid  discoveries  of  modern  science,  and  the 
support  which  It  gives  to  Ilerschers  explanation  of  the  forma- 
tion of  worlds  IS  highly  important.  AV^e  shall  hereafter  see 
what  appear  to  be  traces  of  this  heat  upon  the  surface  of  the 
earth  m  very  remote  times;  an  effect  however  which  has 
long  passed  entirely  away.  The  central  heat  has,  for  ages, 
reached  a  fixed  point,  at  which  it  will  probably  remain  for- 
ever, as  the  non-condacting  rpiality  of  the  cool  crust  absolute- 
ly  prevents  it  from  saffering  any  diminution." 

It  IS  bordering  on  presumption  to  dissent  from  this— the  or- 
thodox doctrine  on  the  subject -but  it  is  better  for  independ- 
ent tnought  to  be  rebuked  tlian  suppressed.  Through  what 
channels  did  the  earth's  central  heat  leak,  and  how  have  they 
become  closed?  Into  what  could  it  have  been  drained? 
VV  here  was  there  cold  matter  to  receive  it  ?  Bat  sapposino-  it 
went  off  somewhere  by  radiation,  why  should  it  not  still\s. 
cape  111  that  way,  and  more  copiously  because  of  the  vastly 
reduced  temperature  of  the  matter  now  enclosinc^  it.  If 
-  ancient  earthquakes  discharged  much,  modern  ones°are  con- 
stantly occurring,  besides  one  or  two  hundred  volcanoes,  to 
give  It  vent.  Its  present  temperature  is  deemed  so  intense 
that  no  scales  have  been  projected  to  measure  it,  and  vet  it 
IS  spoken  of  as  miiGh  less  than  that  of  the  nebulous  earth  Vhen 
thrown  off  from  the  parent  ma.ss.  Who,  then,  can  conceive 
the  alleged  heat  of  the  fluid  universe,  tell  whence  it  came,  or 
establish  the  necessity  of  it. 

That  a  body  of  heat  generated  when  all  matter  was  fluid, 
could  be  kept  alive  by  itself  in  the  bowels  of  this,  or  any 
other  globe,  is,  to  say  the  least,  exceedingly  problematical 
it  IS  not  represented  as  coming  down  through  a  past  eternity 
m  other  matter,  but  in  a  portion  of  the  primordial  nebula  it- 


30 


CURSORY    THOUGHTS 


self—m  a  portion  of  the  pure  and  homogeneous  material  of 
creation,  ere  variety  of  forms  and  substances  had  begun  to  be 
evolved  out  of  it.  Moreover  it  is  represented  under  conditions 
that  render  it  positively  incapable  of  producing  effects  ascribed 
to  It.  Shut  up  within  a  non-conducting  crust,  something  like 
high  steam  in  a  non-conducting  and  perfectly  closed  boiler, 
extcnor  movements  are  attribated  to  it,  as  if  it,  any  more  than 
the  steam,  could  produce  them  without  coming  out  of  the  en- 
velope. ^  If  It  impart  heat  to  matter  outside,  it  loses  forever 
what  It  imparts ;  nor  can  it  displace  bodies  outside  without 
expanding  itself  to  reach  them ;  and  if  it  expands  it  exi^ends 
what  It  expands,  for  that  which  once  passes  out  cannot  be 
drawn  back,  whether  issuing  slowly  by  radiation  or  instanta- 
neously by  impulse. 

Hence,  if  it  were  possible  for  such  a  body  of  heat  to  have 
been  preserved  as  alleged,  its  preservation  would  be  without  a 
purpose,  since  it  could  accomplish  nothing— no  more  than  a 
buried  steam  boiler  from  which  no  steam  could  escape.  We 
prefer  to  contemplate  it  in  the  light  of  experience,  without 
the  danger  of  offending  known  laws,  or  the  invocation  of  un- 
known onea  That  is,  instead  of  being  an  everlasting  fire  of 
celestial  origin,  dating  from  the  beginning  of  creation,  it  is  a 
common  product  of  the  earth,  constantly  wearing  out  and  be- 
ing constantly  renewed—that  as  a  force,  it  differs  in  no  re- 
spect from  other  expansive  forces  in  its  origin,  action  and 
means  of  support. 

The  nature  and  functions  of  central  fires  of  planets  and  sa- 
tellites have  yet  to  be  investigated.  Thev  are  too  commonly 
viewed  as  simply  injurious,  and  as  for  our  earth's  glowing  fur- 
nace, the  soone*"  it  is  extinguished  the  better !  That  it  was  a 
necessary  element  in  her  constitution  its  existence  is  sufficient 
proof,  and  we  venture  the  assertion  that  no  reasons  can  be 
adduced  for  ics  introduction  which  do  not  sustain  the  neces- 
sity of  its  continuance.  Without  it  her  entire  economy  would 
become  deranged.  Her  density  and  dimensions  would  vary ; 
she  would  become  a  compact,  impenetrable  solid ;  the  subsi- 
dence of  worn  out  surflxce  strata,  their  replacement  by  fresh 
strata,  and  the  interminable  variety  of  results  would  cease.  If 
even  the  metamorphose  of  vegetables  into  minerals,  transmu- 
tations of  the  latter,  and  their  ripening  at  srreat  depths  were 
not  arrested,  they  never  could  be  raised  within  the  grasp  oi 


ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


31 


our  niiners.  In  a  word,  we  suppose  the  successive  appearance 
of  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animated  bodies  depends  in  no 
small  degree  on  the  earth's  central  furnace — a  fixture  in  Na- 
ture's laboratory  as  indispensable  as  in  the  chemist's. 

If  it  is  dyhig  out,  the  inference  would  be  that  it  had  ful- 
filled its  mission,  and  that  things  here  were  about  returning  to 
chaos,  though  the  earth  as  a  theatre  of  life  is  obviously  in 
comparative  infancy,  and  our  location  upon  it,  as  it  were,'  but 
yesterday. 

As  the  original  homogeneity  of  matter  has  been  alluded  to, 
the   query    naturally  arises,     By    what  means   were  divers 
substances  evolved  from  it?     We  should  say  by  attraction, 
through   diversities  of  conditions  it  introduced.     AVhen  the 
nebulous  earth  turned  on  its  axis  it  lost  the  uniform  character 
of  its  material.     Its  density  varied  from  surface  to  center,  and 
kept  increasingly  varying   as   condensation   progressed    and 
solidification  set  in.     The  mass  might  then  be  considered  as 
composed  of  innumerable  concentric  layers,  each  differing  in 
texture  and  in  iTioimi  from  the  rest.     Two  permanent  elements 
of  diversity  were  then  initiated,  and  with  them  a  third  one, 
viz:    heat,  the  effect  of  condensation.     'Admitting  that,  the 
material  of  individual   layers  would  still  be  homogeneous.' 
Yes,  but  the  next  step  was  the  evolution  of  a  radiating  force 
to  break,  and  keep  breaking  through  them.     Attraction  did 
this,  also,  by  generating  the  central  upheaving  force;  and  by 
the  continuation  of  that  force,  it  multiplies  changes  of  condi- 
tion on  the  principle  of  permutation,  and  renders  the  recur- 
rence of,  or   approach   to  uniformity  impossible.     Universal 
gravitation  appears  thus  to  have  opened  the  way  for  cohesion, 
chemical,  electrical,  and  every  special  variety  of  attraction,  to 
enter  on  the  work  of  converting  an  uniform  mass  into  the  va- 
riegated orb  we  inhabit— evolving  crystalline  forms,  vegetable 
structures,    animated   bodies,  and    the   circulation  of  living 
forces. 

To  close  the  suggestions  of  this  paper,  (they  are  nothing 
mora)  we  submit  tliat,  that  which  excites  repulsion  in  the 
earth  as  a  whole,  excites  it  in  her  parts— that  the  various  densi- 
ties of  her  materials  are  due  to  the  same  cause  as  is  her  aggre- 
gate density— that  in  them  cohesion  goes  on,  till  molecular 
friction  evolves  repulsion  in  heat  and  thus  establishes  the 
series  of  natural  temperatures,  organic  and  inorganic. 


32 


CUESORT   THOTJGHTS,   ETC. 


(In  living  organisms,  soon  as  the  process  ceases,  the  coldness 
of  death  supervenes.  Of  the  constitutional  heats  of  the  lower 
forms  of  life,  aquatic,  terrestrial  and  aerial,  little  seems  to  liave 
been  determined.  They  are  presumed  to  bear  a  direct,  if  not 
a  constant  relation  to  muscular  power.  Fishes  in  general  are 
but  slightly  warmer  than  the  waters  they  live  in,  but  there 
rnmt  be  a  marked  range  of  temperature  between  the  inert 
and  energetic — between  the  coral,  the  oyster,  the  s^le,  with 
other  slow  swimmers;  and  the  dolphin  and  tunny,  the  shark 
and  the  swordtish,  and  still  huger  indwollers  of  the  ocean 
whose  expenditure  of  force  is  enormous.) 

Without  some  hypothesis  akin  to  the  one  proposed,  we  can- 
not account  for  condensation  stopping  at  different  stages  in 
different  bodies,  nor  for  its  stopping  at  all  in  any.  There  are, 
doubtless,  details  to  l-»e  reconciled  before  it  can  be  accepted ; 
we  can,  however,  think  of  none  presenting  greater  difficulties 
than  condensation  producing  expansion,  and  thai,  if  admitted, 
will  go  far  towards  establishing  the  doctrine  that  atthactiox 
is  the  root  from  which  all  forces  spring— the  weight,  as  has 
elsewhere  been  stated,  which  moves  all  the  clock-works  of 
the  universe,  f^nd  by  its  offspring  heat  is  ever  winding 
them  up. 


New  York,  January,  18C2. 


THE  END. 


ADDENDA  TO  SECOND  EDITION. 


-o- 


In  ivhat  order  did  the  physical  forces  appear  J  or  is  the  dogma 
tenable  that  they  arose  simultaneously  ?  Clearly  not,  unless  the 
raw  material  of  the  universe  was  a  heterogeneous  mass  in  which 
every  one  found  at  once  something  to  do ;  and  from  such  a  commo- 
tion what  conceivable  result  could  have  followed  but  chaos  made 
more  chaotic  ?  But  neither  turbulence  nor  confusion  reigned  over 
the  first  movements  of  matter.     That  is  a  supposition  unworthy  of 

the  slightest  credence.     It  receives  no  sanction  from  philosophy. 

Creation  is  preeminently  a  work  of  law  and  order,  and  nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that  these  pervaded  the  fluid  as  thoroughly  as 
they  pervade  the  present  universe.  As  no  regular  form  or  motion 
can  be  produced  by  the  aubmission,  if  that  were  possible,  of  an 
amorphous  mass  to  the  conjoint  action  of  a  thousand  different  influ- 
ences, the  inference  is  irresistible,  that  the  forces  made  their  ap- 
p«arance  in  a  regular  sequence,  i.fei  as  the  progressive  changes  in 
matter  called  for  them.  How,  indeed,  could  they  appear  till  the 
conditions  were  evolved  upon  which  their  evolution  depended  ? — 
Could  there  have  been  cohesion  before  gravitation,  capillary  action 
before  Hquids  were  formed,  or  vital  energies  ere  living  bodies  ap- 
peared  % 

We  are  assured,  then,  that  the  action  of  a  first  force  was  neces- 
sary to  prepare  matter  to  receive  the  impress  of  a  second,  of  it  for 
a  third,  and  so  on.      We  have  also  assumed  that  the  entire  system 

[33] 


34: 


CURSOKY   THOUGHTS 


of  creation — its  order,  harmony,  its  integrity  and  stability,  arose 
out  of  and  is  sustained  by  the  Leading  Force  ;  and  that  this  force 
must  be  essentially  different  from  all  others  in  its  origin  and  attri- 
butes ;  that  it  exists  independently  of  them,  and  that  they  exist 
only  in  and  through  it ;  that  no  changes  in  the  condition  of  matter 
can  affect  it ;  that  it  is  continuous  in  its  action  and  invariable  in  in- 
tensity, from  everlasting  to  everlasting. 

What  is  it  ?     We   have    said  Attraction.      But  Attraction   has 
various  phases  which,  developed  under   certain  conditions,  could 
not  have  preceded  those  conditions.      There  is  but  one   answer  to 
the  question.     As  Attraction  was  the  first  force,  Geavitation  was 
the  first  form  or  phase  of  that  force  ;  and   consequently   the   on© 
which  gave  the  first  motion  to  matter,  and  opened  the  grand  work- 
ing scene  of  Creation.     Derivable   from   no    second   cause,   other 
forces  proceed  more  or  less  directly  from  it.      They  are  inconstant 
and  variable,  but  with  it  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  turning.      It  acts 
ceaselessly  on  the  whole  material  of  the   universe,  they  only  on 
parts  and  interruptedly.     We  can  elicit,  modify,  oppose  and  extin- 
guish other  forces,  but  we  can  neither  touch  nor  tamper  with  Gra- 
vitation.    No  finite  power  can  do  that.     We  are  at  no  loss  to  imag- 
ine how  it  started  the  dark,  and  cold,  and  dead  universe  into   life, 
by  gathering  the  material  into  constellations,  systems,  and  individ- 
ual spheres  ;  evolving  repulsion  in  heat  by  compressing  them  ;  and, 
by  varying  their  densities   and  temperatures,  giving   birth  to  the 
minor  forces  ;  and  we  understand  how  it  holds  the  materials  of  our 
orb  (and  those  of  all  orbs)   together   without  interfering  with  the 
action  of  minor  forces  on  them — ^how,  in  short,  it  governs  the  whole 
while  they  bring  out  details. 

What  intervals  occurred  in  the  successive  evolutions  of  inorgan- 
ic, vegetable  and  living  forces,  we  can  never  know,  nor  is  it  of 
importance  that  we  should  know.  That  they  extended  over  periods 
that  would  stretch  the  imagination  to  comprehend  may  well  be  con- 
ceded, wonderfully  bold  and  soaring  as  human  speculations  on  the 


ON   SOME  NATUEAL  PHENOMENA. 


35 


(      ^ 


cosmogony  have  been  and  are.  It  would,  however,  be  a  substantial 
gain  to  know,  not  only  that  every  change  wrought  in  matter  by  'm^ 
force  was  taken  hold  of  by  another  which  the  change  was  the  means 
of  awakening,  but  also  the  position  of  each  in  the  series.  If  Grav- 
itation was  the  first,  what  was  the  second,  the  third,  and  so  on  to 
the  latest.  It  is  certainly  with  the  growth  of  worlds  as  with  the 
smallest  objects.  The  forces  that  develope  and  mature  them  follow 
in  as  regular  an  order  as  those  which  bring  forth  a  tree  laden  with 
fruit,  from  a  seed.  And,  as  we  cannot  entertain  the  thought  that 
the  universe  is  ripe,  or  any  fruit-bearing  sphe^.^  in ,  i|,j  f^  think 
the  probabilities  are  that  new  forces  haye  yet  to  appear  with 
changes  of  matter  not  yet  reached. 

The  aggregate  amount  of  Force  in  the  XIniperse  is  a  problem  of 
the  highest  interest  in  the  economy  of  worlds.  Is  it  the  same  now 
as  in  the  beginning  ?  Some  suppose  it  is,  and  will  be  under  all 
conditions  of  things.  How  then  is  it  distributed  so  as  to  be  no- 
where deficient  or  in  excess,  since  without  scfnije  laws  on  this  point, 
creatioi^  would  run  into  chaos.  The  answer  is  ;  the  amount  of 
force  depends  on  that  of  matter — is  invariable  as  that  of  matter.  In 
other  words,  the  motive  power  of  the  universe  is  derived  from  Gra- 
vitation, and  can  therefore  neither  be  increased  nor  diminished  an 
iota,  here  or  anywhere  else. 

Such  is  one  opinion,  but  one  too  hastily  made  up.  That  the 
amount  of  force  is  variable  of  which  our  planet  is  the  depository  is 
certain.  That  there  are  forces  in  play  now  which  were  not  de- 
veloped when  the  earth  was  a  nebulous  body,  is  unquestionable. 
And  are  not  the  vast  and  vastly  increasing  ones  artificially  excited 
in  steam,  gunpowder,  and  other  agents  in  innumerable  processes  in 
the  arts,  to  say  nothing  of  her  varying  populations,  proofs  that 
there  is  no  uniformity  here  in  the  consumption  ?  It  is  true  that 
man  can  no  more  create  force  than  matter,  but  he  can  use  or  neg- 


S6 


CURSORY  THOUGHTS 


lect  to  nse  it ;  and  herein  lies  the  difference.  The  opinion  quoted 
recognises  no  distinction  between  income  and  outlay.  It  seems  to 
be  based  on  the  idea  that  the  current  supply  is  the  current  expen- 
diture, without  any  capital  laid  up  to  fall  back  on  ;  whereas  such 
capital  is  the  only  source  to  draw  on.  We  can  obtain  no  force  di- 
rectly from  gravitation.  It  is  only  through  matter  that  has  received 
it3  impress  that  it  becomes  available. 

There  could  have  been  no  difference  whatever  between  the  pres- 
ent universe  and  the  fluid  one,  had  there  not  been  an  accumulation 
and  conservation  of  force  in  the  materials  condensed.  It  is  by 
them  it  has  grown  to  be  what  it  is.  It  is  the  force  laid  up  in  them 
*that  has  rendered  it  habitable  to  physical  organisms.  In  the  sub- 
stances from  which  we  obtain  force,  gravitation  has  been  storing  it 
up  from  the  beginning,  and  keeps  on  storing  it.  The  aggregate 
Amount  latent  here  has  therefore  never  been  stationary — perhaps 
always  on  the  increase.  Iti  modem  times,  man  has  drawn  mK)re 
largely  on  the  fund  than  heretofore,  and  the  probability  is,  and  the 
hope  too,  that  he  will  continue  to  increase  the  number  and  amounts 
of  his  drafts,  since  there  is  no  danger  of  his  exhausting  or  even 
diminishing  it.  Force  is  here  a  perennial  font  that  neither  settles 
nor  overflows.  And  as  with  our  planet,  doubtless  with  others,  es- 
sential as  it  must  be  to  physical  intelligences  everywhere.  The 
foundation  of  all  progress,  mental  power  has  a  direct  relation  to 
the  developments  and  applications  of  the  physical. 

The  leading  and  all  important  product  of  the  concrete  universe, 
every  sphere  is  made  a  storehouse  offeree  and  of  materials  to  be 
elaborated  by  it.  To  what  but  Gravitation  is  it,  or  can  it  be  as- 
cribed ?  To  gather  matter  into  worlds  and  to  regulate  their  move- 
ments would  have  amounted  to  little  without  this  impress  of  itself 
within  them.  The  power  that  did  one  could  alone  do  the  other. 
Great  as  Gravitation  is,  its  grandest  function  is  within  the  spheres, 
though  commonly  imagined  without.  ' 


ON   SOME   NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


V 


Original  incandescence  of  matter :  There  appears  something 
very  forced,  and  conflicting  with  every  analogy  in  nature,  in  mak- 
ing creation  begin  with  all  matter  on  fire.  We  know  not  how  to 
accept  an  hypothesis  that  makes  heat  precede  cold,  and  light  dark- 
ness, and  commences  the  process  of  development  by  extinguishing 
both  light  and  heat ;  and  that  too,  to  bring  them  forth  again.  The 
oldest  cosmoganists  made  Day  the  offspring  of  Night.  So  with 
the  Mosaic  account  :  "  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven 
and  the  earth — and  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep.  And 
God  said,  let  there  be  lights  in  the  firmament  of  heaven."  This 
appears  natural,  and  is  philosophical.  Utter  darkness  and  conse- 
quently intense  cold  pervaded  the  fluid  universe  ;  and  the  move- 
ments began  by  breaking  it  up  into  spheres — by  studding  the 
firmament  with  greater  and  lesser  lights — with  solar  lamps  and 
planetary  reflectors.  Not  that  they  burst  into  brilliancy  at  once, 
or  simultaneously,  but  that  each  became  gradually  lit  up  as  heat 
wa3  evolved  from  its  material  by  condensation,  and  this  not  as  a 
distinct  operation,  but  one  progressing  in  common  with  other  de- 
velopments. 

As  the  laws  that  govern  matter  never  change,  it  is  safe,  in  fact 
the  only  mode  of  acquiring  positive  knowledge,  to  compare  its  action 
in  nature  with  its  behavior  in  art.  Now  experimental  philosophy 
teaches  us  that  if  the  material  of  creation  were  originally  fluid  and 
incandescent,  it  would,  if  resolved  intb  its  original  form,  resume  its 
original  temperature.  But  if  the  teachings  of  Physical  science  can 
be  relied  on  at  all,  expansion  generates  cold.  Of  this  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  and  hence  the  inference  iiS'lhAt  primordial  matter,  instead 
of  being  densely  heated,  was  destitute  of  heat.  Indeed,  it  would 
seem  preposterous  to  suppose,  in  direct  conflict  with  the  funda- 
mental law  by  which  temperature  diminishes  with  ejtpansion,  that 
the  dilation  of  the  spheres' Into  a  thin  flm(icoN3M  result  itfanght  bu{ 
a  gelid  one.  If  so,  it  was  originally  gelid.  Consonant  with  this  is 
the  fact  that  in  the  existing  universe  heat  most  abounds  where 


88 


CUESOET    THOUGHTS 


matter  is  most  crowded — most  in  the  spheres,  least  in  the  ether. 
How  this  can  be  satisfactorily  explained  by  the  igneous  theory  we 
do  not  know.  By  the  cold  one  it  is  a  natural  and  philosophical 
result.  That  is,  gravitation  began  the  work  of  elaboration  by  com- 
pressing the  cold  primordial  nebula  into   heat-generatino-   orbs 

converting  an  original  frigid  into  a  warm  and  genial  universe and 

while  it  was  thus  storing  up  in  heat  the  element  of  expansion  in 
condensed  nebula,  it  was  at  the  same  time  inducing  expansion  in 
the  uncondensed — preparing  an  atmosphere  for  the  orbs  while  they 
were  being  prepared  for  it. 

It  is  worth  remarking  that  this  double   effect  of  attraction  is  as 
common  in  the  concrete  as  it  was  in  the  fluid  universe.     It  never 

condenses  one  body  here,  large  or  small,  without  dilating  another 

commonly  the  atmosphere,  and  therefore  not  perceptible.  That 
was  a  true  saying  of  some  old  philosophers,  "  Nature  abhors  a  vac- 
uum."    She  has  made  no  provision  for  one. 

The  Ether. — It  may  be  thought  that  the  cold  theory  is  attended 
with  as  great  difficulties  as  the  igneous  one.  We  may  be  asked  to 
account  for  the  separation  from  the  parent  mass  of  that  portion  of 
matter  which  constitutes  the  ether,  and  how  it  escaped  being  gath- 
ered up  in  the  spheres.  Is  there  not  here  as  perplexing  an  enigma 
as  any  attending  original  incandescence,  how  the  heat  was  produced, 
what  purpose  it  accomplished,  how  the  spheres  became  solidified  in 
spite  of  it,  and  what  became  of  it  ?  No.  It  is  not  difficult  to  find 
a  rational  and  philosophic  solution,  or,  at  all  events,  one  that  appears 
such.  If  we  extract  from  a  close  receiver  any  part  of  the  air  with 
which  it  is  charged,  no  space  is  for  a  moment  left  vacant  because  of 
the  dilation  of  the  remaining  part.  But  suppose,  instead  of  with- 
drawing any  portion,  we  could,  and  were  to  compress  one-half,  two- 
^thirds  or  nine-tenths  of  it  into  minute  liquid  or  concrete  globules, 
the  remaining  fluid  would  dilate  j)ari  passu  with  the  condensation 
and  occupy  the  whole  interior.     Now  something  like  this  we  sup- 


•f 


ON   SOME   NATURAL   PHENOMENA. 


39 


pose  was  the  process  by  which  the  greater  part  of  the  fluid  that 
filled  the  universal  receiver — boundless  space — was  gathered  into 
the  spheres,  and  the  remainder  dilated  into  the  present  ether. 

The  nebulous  matter  of  a  system  or  a  solitary  orb  could  not  be 
drawn  together  and  leave  a  vacuum  outside.  In  one  respect  the 
nuclei  might  be  likened  to  sponges  :  eack  drew  upon  the  surround- 
ing fluid  till  absorption  ceased  with  saturation.  The  residue  con- 
stitutes the  atmosphere  of  the  universe,  and  may  be  as  vital  to  it  as 
our  atmosphere  is  to  our  earth.  Whether  the  spheres  could  have 
been  formed  under  the  prevailing  laws  of  matter  without  its  agency 
we  need  not  inquire.  Its  existence  proves  that  it  was  indispensible 
to  their  formation  and  is  so  to  their  conservation.  Possibly  one  of 
its  functions  might  and  may  be  allied  to  one  that  our  atmosphere 
performs — that  of  a  recipient  and  diluent  of  forces — a  medium  in 
which  the  most  violent  harmlessly  expire. 

We  consider,  then,  the  attenuated  matter  pervading  space  as  not 
only  a  definite  proportion  of  the  mother  fluid  reserved  as  the  me- 
dium for  the  spheres  to  move  in,  but,  so  far  as  relates  to  perceptions 
like  ours,  a  fair  representation  of  what  the  fluid  univ-erse  originally 
was.  Its  density  is  of  course  less  than  when  the- substance  of  the 
spheres  was  diffused  through  it,  but  its  character  may  have  been 
no  more  affected  by  that  than  air  rarefied  differi  fi^pm  the  same  air 
unrarefied — than  a  less  quantity  differs  from  a  greater.  It  was  con- 
densation that  began  the  changes  of  condition  in  matter.  If  pure, 
primogenial  matter  anywhere  abounds  we  know  not  where  to  look 
for  it  but  in  the  ether  :  nowhere  else  is  it,  or  ha^  it  been,  less  snl|* 
ject  to  change.  It  does  not  appear  to  coalesce  with  the  alloyed 
masses,  nebular  and  concrete,  moving  through  it,  so  that  whatever 
influence  it  exerts  on  them  it  would  seem  to  preserve  itself  intact. 

There  is  one  point  respecting  the  ether  which  may  be  thought  to 
sustain  the  fiery  hypothesis.  Its  low  temperature  may  properly  be 
ascribed  to  expansion  in  consequence  of  the  absorption  of  so  much 
of  matter  by  the  spheres  ;  but  then,  by  the  same  law,  the  incandes- 


40 


CURSORY  THOUGHTS 


cent  material  of  the  latter  should  have  been  made  still  hotter  by 
condensation  ;  as  red-hot  bars  of  metal  become  of  a  brighter  red  by* 
passing  through  rollers.  And  should  not  the  high  temperature 
have  continued  as  well  as  the  low  one,  since  the  condensing  power 
has  no  more  ceased  to  act  than  the  expanding  one.  Accept  the 
theory  of  a  frigid  fluid  universe,  and  all  seems  clear. 

Unity  ofForce.--^Q  can  hare  no  idea  offeree  unless  associated 
with  resistance,  nor  can  we  perceive  how  the  action  of  a  uniform 
force  on  a  homogeneous  mass  can  produce  diversities  of  results; 
hence  the  theory  of  attraction  and  repulsion.  But  if  these  are 
what  they  have  been  represented,  coeval  and  in  every  respect  co- 
equal, so  far  from  nature's  varieties  being  deducible  from  them, 
there  could  have  been  no  motion  at  all.  Two  opposing  forces, 
equally  powerful,  invariable  and  independent,  would  neutralise 
each  other — the  form  and  condition  of  primordial  matter  could  not 
have  been  changed  by  them.  Under  this  and  every  other  aspect 
of  the  doctrine  of  a  plurality  of  original  energies,  we  catinot  resist 
the  inference  that  there  must  be  one  controlling  power  from  which 
others  proceed  and  to  whose  impulses  they  respond.  In  short,  that 
Repulsion  is  the  offspring  of  Gravitation. 

Another  consideration  :  All  phenomena  are  confined  within  two 
Conditions  of  matter — the  aeriform  and  concrete.  Intermediate 
conditions  veer  between  these,  and  are,  in  fact,  modifications  of 
them.  We  do  not  know  that  any  form  or  substance  can  pass  out- 
side of  them,  or  that  matter,  under  the  present  constitution  of  the 
universe,  can  have  any  other  mode  or  state  of  being.  But  passing 
that,  the  fact  that  the  sensible  changes  to  which  it  is  subject  are 
confined  within  them  is  significant.  While  it  proclaims  the  gen- 
eral movements  of  matter  it  makes  known  the  general  functions  and 
directions  of  force — that  it  is  expended  on  the  evolution  of  the  two 
simple  but  all-comprehensive  conditions  named.  Now,  we  have 
shown,  or,  if  it  be  thought  we  have  not,  we  are  sure  it  can  be  shown, 


ON   SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


41 


that  the  generic  operations  of  gravitation  *  are  condensation  and 
expansion— that  it  is  expended  in  compressing  gaseous  into  solid 
bodies  and  dissoking  the  solid  into  the  gaseous,  and  that  it  thus 
covers  all  the  motions  and  changes  to  which  matter  is  subject.* 

Be  it  also  remembered  that  the  conditions  aeriform  and  concrete 
are  a  unit,  mere  degrees  of  density  ;  and  further,  that  force  itself 
is  simply  change  op  density— arising  from  internal  movements  of 
bodies  undergoing  such  change.  Density  may  therefore  be  con- 
sidered  the  basis  of  variety  in  the  constitution  of  bodies  and  the 
universal  measure  of  force.  But  does  it  not  indicate  something 
more  ?  We  think  it  sanctions  the  proposition  that  Unity  of  Creatiaii 
implies  Unity  of  Force. 

The  dual  theory  is  strikingly  akin  to  those  conceptions  of  Na- 
ture's  phenomena  which   mark  the   early  history  of  most  people. 
Almost  everything  had  a  double  origin,  as  light  and  darkness,  pain 
and  pleasure,  growth  and  decay,  life  and  death,  &c.     There  were 
moral  attractions  and  repulsions  ;  the  evil  principle  warred  w^hin 
man  against  the  good  ;  and  there  were,  of  course,  two  supreme  dei- 
ties  from  which  the  opposing  principles   proceeded.    la  leligion 
polytheism  naturally   precedes    monotheism,    and,    as    it    would 
seem,    dualism  monism    in    philosophy.     What  is   this   but  the 
growth    of    wisdom    in    both.      To    apply    the    dual    origin   of 
things    to    Force    seems    as    repugnant    to    philosophy    as    its 
application  to  religion  or  to  matter.     If  unity  can  be  inferred  in 
anything  it  surely  must  be  in  that  which  took  hold  of  matter  at  the 
beginning,  formed  it  into  worlds  and  produces  every  form  and  mo- 
tion within  them  and  without ;  that  invisible,  intangible,  illimitable 
energy  which  directly  represents  the  Power  of  God,  which  in  fact 
is  that  Power.     Gravitation  has  no  second  cause,  or  if  it  has,  it  is 
reserved  for  a  higher  order  of  intellects  than  ours. 

Dualism  requires  principles  of  diferent  natures,  oHgmd  and  in- 
capable of  being  derived  one  from  tlie  otlier.     By  the  theory  sug- 


42 


OURSORT  THOUGHTS 


-gested  in  this  paper,  there  is  no  property  or  condition  of  matter  but 
merges,  when  carried  to  certain  extents,  into  an  opposite  condi- » 
tion,  as  exemplified  in  condensation  producing  expansion.  The 
continuation  of  motion  in  one  direction  is  impossible  :  sooner  or 
later  it,  like  the  track  of  the  circumnavigator,  returns  upon  itself, 
and  the  point  of  turning  is  antipodal  to  that  of  starting.  Heat  is  a 
form  of  motion  :  communicate  it  to  a  mass  of  metal,  it  enters  at  the 
surface  and  returns  from  the  centre.  This  is  analogous  to  pushing 
and  pulling  in  mechanical  forces,  to  attraction  and  repulsion 
in  chemical  forces,  to  positive  and  negative  electric  forces. 
In  fine,  we  deny,  maugre  appearances,  that  there  is,  or  ever 
was,  two  conflicting  elements  in  nature.  She  does  not  war 
at^ainst  herself.  We  would  as  soon  admit  original  repulsion  in 
morals  as  in  matter,  for  both  are  in  the  same  category.  That 
which  is  the  life  of  creation,  and  more  allied  to  the  spiritual  than 
anything  else  conceivable,  we  can  never  contemplate  as  a  com- 
pound. 

Time  and  Force  :  By  a  series  of  popular  metaphors,  poets  and 
writers  on  morals  have  showered  upon  that  which  is  absolutely  in- 
nocuous and  quiescent  most  unseemly  designations.  It  is  not  Time 
that  crumbles  the  pyramids  and  sweeps  man  and  his  works  away  ; 
the  Great  Destroyer,  what  does  it  destroy ;  the  Ravager,  whom 
does  it  injure  ;  a  Thief,  what  does  it  steal  ;  Swift  Winged,  it  hur- 
ries no  one.  Time  is  a  passive  spectator  of  the  doings  of  Force, 
and,  instead  of  a  scythe,  should  be  represented  with  a  mirror  to  re- 
flect the  changes  which  Force  is  ceaselessly  working  out  in  the 
vast  fabric  of  Creation. 

-d  word  more  on  Friction  as  the  source  of  heat. — So  far  as  I  can 
perceive  there  is  not  an  operation  in  nature  from  the  least 
to  the  greatest,  that  conflicts  with  it.  According  to  it,  heat  in- 
creases with  pressure,  and  therefore  with  mass ;  hence  the  luminous 


<>|[  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 


^ 


f' 


sun  and  non-luminosity  of  the  planets,  the  mass  of  the  former  ex- 
ceeding that  of  all  the  latter  combined  ;  hence  the  coldness  and  dark- 
ness of  space  whera  the  means  of  generating  heat  and  light  are  not. 
Then  the  temperature  of  our  earth  increases  with  pressure,  from 
her  surface  to  her  center  as  already  remarked  ;  but  we  ought  not 
to  have  stopped  there.  Another  test  was  at  hand  ;  the  atmosphere 
diminishes  in  temperature  and  density  upwards.  The  lowest 
stratum  is  the  warmest,  and  every  superincumbent  one  less  warm 
because  of  diminished  pressure.  We  may  never  know  how  high 
nature's  scale  of  density  rises,  but  what  appears  to  be  the  lowest 
degree,  the  ether  outside  of  our  atmosphere,  is  almost  within  our 
reach.  From  its  tenuity  and  the  absence  of  pressure,  Its  estimated 
temperature,  100^  below  zero,  may  approximate  the  truth.  • 

We  have  said  the  earth  is  a  friction  fire-mill,  and  we  might  have 
added  that  if  it  were  not  incessantly  grinding  out  heat  nothing  that 
has  life  could  exist  upon  it.  *  Although  the  sun  is  the  most  obvious 
and  conspicuous  source  of  heat  for  the  earth,  it  is  by  no  means  the 
sole  source  of  the  enormous  quantity  that  streams  away  in  all  di- 
rections from  his  surface,  the  earth  receives  but  a  small  fraction. 
But  it  is  neither  lost  nor  wasted  :  he  not  only  warms  the  earth,  but 
assists  to  warm  the  universe.  Our  globe  catches  a  trifling  portion 
of  his  rays  ;  but  the  rest  fly  onward  to  distant  regions,  where  all 
are  finally  intercepted  by  the  wandering  hosts  of  orbs  with  which 
the  heavens  are  filled.  And  what  the  sun  does,  all  the  other  stars 
and  planets  are  doing.  A  mighty  system  of  exchange  is  established 
among  the  bodies  in  space,  by  which  each  radiates  heat  to  all  the 
rest,  and  receives  it  in  turn  from  all  the  rest,  according  to  the 
measure  of  its  endowments.  The  whole  stellar  universe  thus  con- 
tributes to  our  warmth.  It  is  a  startling  fact,  that  if  the  earth  were 
dependent  alone  upon  the  sun  for  heat,  it  would  not  get  enough  to 
make  the  existence  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  possible  upon  its 
surface.'     Youmans. 

To  say  that  heat  is  a  common  product  of  the  earth  would  be  say- 


u 


CUESOI^Y  THOUaHTS 


ing  little,  because  it  is  the  most  common  and  most  essential.  It  , 
has,  at  least,  three  distinct  sources  from  which  it  is  ceaselessly 
streaming.  1.  Gravitation,  as  already  remarked,  by  compressing 
the  whole  of  her  materials  into  smaller  and  small  spaces^  kindled 
and  keeps  alive  her  central  fire;  a  feature  as  essential  as  the  heart 
is  to  a  living  body.  2.  Every  individual,  form  and  substance  is  an 
independent  heat  producer.  It  generates  by  attraction  of  cohesion 
the  temperature  natural  to  it.  The  fact  is  obvious  in  living  bodies, 
and  would  be  equally  so  in  vegetables  and  minerals  had  we  organs 
or  instruments  fine  enough  to  penetrate  them.  3.  Every  body  that 
moves,  or  stirs,  in  or  through  earth,  air,  or  water,  evolves  heat. 
Not  an  eyelash  is  raised  without  adding  to  the  stock.  Every 
earthly  ttom  is  ceaselesdy  producing  it.  However  various  its 
other  functions  are,  it  never  stops  fulfilling  this  one.  Why  all 
this  provision  for  the  perpetual  evolution  of  heat  here  ?  Because 
it  is  the  most  precious  and  prolific  of  mundane  products.  Without 
it,  we  could  have  no  other. 

There  is  not  an  earthly  object,  or  substance,  of  any  value  or  use 
of  itself,  that  can  accomplish  anything  of  itself.  So  it  i%  we  be- 
lieve,  with  the  spheres  themselves.  In  the  matter  of  heat  how 
forcibly  is  this  truth  impressed  upon  us.  While  the  quantity  gen- 
erated here  greatly  surpasses  all  external  supplies,  they  are  abso- 
lutely indispensible.  Suppose  our  orb  isolated  from  others  ;  out- 
casts of  creation,  we  should  grovel  in  outer  darkness,  and  be- 
numbed with  cold,  perish  with  chattering  if  not  with  gnashing  of 
teeth.  It  is  our  relation  to  other  orbs  that  prevents  this.  Con- 
nected by  the  most  precious  of  bonds,  we  receive  from  them,  in  so- 
lar and  stellar  heat  and  light,  blessings  that  defy  the  imagination 
to  conceive  greater.  However  foreign  to  us  some  solar  products 
may  be,  none  could  be  sent  us  so  precious  as  these. 

We  are  not  prepared  to  accept  an  old  hypothesis,  though  re- 
vived and  sanctioned  by  living  authorities,  that  our  gwat  luminary  is 
a  mass  of  molten  matter,  its  surface  agitated  by  waves  of  flame  and 


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ON    SOME   NATURAL   PHENOMENA. 


45 


it  nucleus  subjected  to  violent  commotions.  A  mere  flambeau,  as 
it  were,  to  warm  and  light  up  our  planet  and  others.  If  we  had  to 
construct  lamps  a  thousand  times  larger  than  our  apartments  there 
might  be  some  grounds  for  belief,  none  otherwise,  that  we  can 
think  of,  unless  the  glowing  sphere  really  is,  what  a  learned  cler- 
gyman of  the  Church  of  England  makes  it,;  the  :Gjeatral  receptable 
for  impenitent  sinners  of  the  system-^^an  hypothesis  not  cumbered 
with  the  problem  most  perplexing  to  modern  scientists — wliencethe 
material  by  which  the  combustion  is  kept  up.  (See  Swinden's  En- 
quiry into  the  Nature  and  Place  of  Hell.     London,  1714.) 

The  chemical  unity  of  the  whole  planetary  system  has  long  been 
surmised,  and  the  recent  analysis  di  the  sun's  atmosphere  by  MM. 
Kirchofi"  and  Bunsen  have,  it  is  said,  demonstrated  the  identity 
of  solar  and  telluric  substances.  Iron,  copper,  flickel  and  zinc  are 
common  metals  here.  They  appear  to  be  quite  as  common,  if  not 
more  so,  in  the  sun.  The  discovery  will  lead  to  improved  views 
respecting  the  constitution  and  temperature  of  the  sun's  interior. 
To  say  nothing  of  other  materials,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  the 
metals  just  named  can  be  generated  in  '  an  incandescent  liquid 
globe,'  which  M.  Kirchoff  thinks  the  Sun  is.  (See  Smithsonian  Re- 
port for  1861.) 

Mental  culture  is  the  criterion  of  human  progress.  To  what  a 
limited  extent  it  has  yet  been  carried  out  is  apparent  in  the  fact 
that  in  every  state  of  enlightened  Europe  the  great  body  of  the 
people  is  represented  as  the  unthinking  multitude.  Then,  how  far 
below  even  them  are  the  populations  of  savage  and  semi-civilized 
lands.  Under  the  most  favorable  views  the  amount  of  thought  in  * 
the  world  is  startlingly  small  ;  and  how  much  of  it  is,  even  among 
peoples  the  most  advanced,  inane,  puerile,  superficial,  and  mere 
repetition  I  Deduct  what  is  not  original — the  only  real  additions  to 
the  stock — and  how  minute  the  balance.  Is  this  indicative  of  de- 
generacy in  the  species,  as  some  would  infer?  No.  This  balance 
is,  we  believe,  larger  and  of  a  better  quality  than  has  characterised 


46    CUKSOEY  THOUGHTS  ON  SOME  NATURAL  PHENOMENA. 

the  Past.  The  contributions  of  our  age  have  certainly  exceeded 
the  nett  products  of  any  previous  age.  We  believe  so  because  we 
believe  our  species  is  in  its  infancy,  and  consequently  that  it  is 
neither  remaining  stationary  nor  retrograding,  but  growing  in  in- 
tellectual power  and  activity.  A  child  has  no  idea  of  what  he  will 
be  in  vigorous  manhood  ;  and  our  race  seems  equally  unconscious 
of  what  it  is  to  grow  up  to.  The  world  has  had,  now  and  then,  a 
few  precocious  students,  but  probably  no  better  or  closer  thinkers 
than  the  average  man  of  the  race  will  one  day  be. 

New  York,  May,  1863. 


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